The optick glasse of humors. Or The touchstone of a golden temperature, or the Philosophers stone to make a golden temper wherein the foure complections sanguine, cholericke, phlegmaticke, melancholicke are succinctly painted forth, and their externall intimates laide open to the purblind eye of ignorance it selfe, by which euery one may iudge of what complection he is, and answerably learne what is most sutable to his nature. Lately pend by T.W. Master of Artes.

The optick glasse of humors. Or The touchstone of a golden temperature, or the Philosophers stone to make a golden temper wherein the foure complections sanguine, cholericke, phlegmaticke, melancholicke are succinctly painted forth, and their externall intimates laide open to the purblind eye of ignorance it selfe, by which euery one may iudge of what complection he is, and answerably learne what is most sutable to his nature. Lately pend by T.W. Master of Artes.

Table of contents

Title page

To the right worshipful wise and learned Knight, Sir IVSTINIAN LEVVIN, T. W. wisheth euent of all FELICITIE.

To the Reader,

THE Titles and Contents of the seuerall Chapters as they are handled in in this present booke.

§

Of Selfe knoweledge. Chap. 1.

Cap. 2. That the soule simpathizeth with the body and followeth her crasis and temperature.

Cap. 3. Whether the internall faculty may be knowne by the externall physiognomie.

Cap. 4. That a diet is to bee obserued of eueryone.

Cap. 5. How man derogates from his excellency by surfet and of his vntimely death.

Cap. 6. Of Temperaments.

Cap. 7. Of diuersities of wit: and most according to tempers.

Cap. 8. Of the Spirits.

Cap. IX, Of a cholerick complection.

Cap. X. Of a sanguine temperature.

Cap. 11. Of the Phlegmaticke humour.

Cap. 7. Of a me lancholicke complection.

Chap. 13. Of the conceits of Melancholy.

Cap. 14. Of the dreames of complections.

Cap. XV. Of the exactest temperature of all, whereof Lemnius speakes.

The Clôse.

Catastrophe lectori.

§

§

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THE OPTICK GLASSE of HVMORS.

OR The touchstone of a golden temperature, or the Philosophers stone to make a golden temper, Wherein the foure complections Sanguine, Cholericke, Phlegmaticke, Melancholicke are succinctly painted forth, and their externall intimates laide open to the purblindeye of ignorance it selfe, by which euery one may iudge of what complection he is, and answerably learne what is most sutable to his nature.

Lately pend by T. W. Master of Artes.

Inueniat quod quisque lubet, non omnibus vnum est Quod placet, hic spinas colligit ille Rosas.

LONDON. Imprinted by IOHN WINDET for MARTIN CLERKE, and are to be sold at his shop without Aldersgate. 1607.

To the right worshipful wise and learned Knight, Sir IVSTINIAN LEVVIN, T. W. wisheth euent of all FELICITIE.

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PRiuate study wee may not vnfitly say replenisheth the vessell, wise parly and communication giues the vent and easie flow, and secretariship the sale: the one loads the memorie, the other lends the smooth deliuery; the last perfects the judgement and wins chiefest glory; so that studious diligence without writing and conference [Page] is the dull picture of Harpocrates the God of silence, who is fained to weare a Wolues skin, full of eares and eyes, but sealing vp his lips with his forefinger, as mute as a marble Niobe: and so writing without both, is the picture of jangling Thersites, whose words (as the Poet saith) were without measure and wit without weight, as lauish in tongue as Battus. The Hieroglyphicke of a true Scholer is the Hare, that sleepesPi [...]rius. waking with her eyes open, and wakes sleeping with her eyes shut; that is who seemes to meditate when he is in action, and to practise when hee is in meditatiō: or as other Emblemists haue limd forth a right student, euer to haue one eye shutte and an other open, hauing in his right hand Phospohr [...]s with his motto in one word—vigilo, and Hes perus in the other hand with this word—Dormio; to intimate that he should deuide the day & night for practise and speculation, to equalize the [...]mes of [Page] both at his fitter oportunity; neither to act Democritus (who so might worthily haue laught at his owne folly) that puld out his owne eyes to become a continuall contemplatour; nor to bee like Nicias, who as AElian records, forgotAElianus lib. 3. cap. 31. his meate by being too intent on his painting; as swift torrents oft runne themselues drie by too much motion, so standing pooles do putrifie by no mo tion. There is a faire tract betweene Scilla and Charybdis for wisedom to trauers in; a happy orbe betwixt Saturne and Luna for Phaeton to guide his choach in, so betweene all action and altogether contemplation for a student to conuerse in. For conferring I do passe it ouer, as that whereto I seldome haue beene beholden, yet much affecting it, and knowing that it brings a great accrument vnto wisedome and learning: as concerning my study and reading it hath bin but meane I must needs confesse, and my writing very [Page] penurious in regard of theirs, whoe haue inriched whole reames of paper with the Indian mine, and golden chaffai [...]e of their inuention: yet for that module of these habiliments i [...] me I haue euer bent my judgement so far as in it lay to limit al these vnto their peculiar times, obiects, & places, & haue tenderd my endeauour to haue especicially two, the one correspondent vnto the other, neither to act Democritus nor Nicias, but by intercourse to mixe my sweeter meditation, with bitter, yet profitable and better action. And as in other things of greater or lesse moment, so in this also the abortiue issue of my wit begot of that aboundance of loue I owe vnto your good self, whose manifold kindnesses, if I should bury in obliuion, I might worthily seeme ingrateful, if remembring I should not in some sort requite, I might seeme odious and respectlesse, both of mine owne good name, and your better desert, [Page] the latter whereof is much, yet the first much more, a delicious fruite that growes from the tree of gratitude. The Eleans, therefore sayth Pausanias Pausanias in Eliria. did paint forth the three Graces, holding these three things in their hand—Rosam, Myrrhum, Talum: to intimate that from thankfulnesse proceed three fruites. First the sweetnesse of a good name, shadowed out by the sweetesmelling Rose: 2. the profit redounding from it insinnuated by the Mirhe branch, and lastly chiefe comfort and hilarity vnclowded by the coccal bone which especially is competent to yong age, which three comprise all Aristotles three goods. Howsoeuer I may seeme to aime at the first, as may be inferd by precedent speach, alway highly prizing a good name as of a precious ointment, vapring forth a fragrant smell and dilicious odure in all mens nostrils; and at the last as desirous of mine own delight some contentmēt [Page] and comfort issuing from my thankfulnesse, yet for the other more, agreeing to Sycophants & crum-catching parasites, it moues not once within the Zodiacke of my expectation, I onely satis [...]ying my selfe with the former. Nether did I in the waine of my iudgment attempt this as desirous to drawe in the per [...]uming breath of vaine glory, to puff vp my self with self cōceit like the Camaeleō which is—nil praeter pulmones, nothing but lungs: but only thinking to break the ice, happely to wade farther, and to imploy my selfe in greater taskes, as fitter opor tunity shall obiect her selfe vnto me, if the prefinit tear me and limit of my life permit, and withall in lue of gratitude, to presēt your self▪ with this little which seems much in regard of my wants, and labour, as much seems little in respect of of your euer kind fauour. For this as also your other endowments, my penne might worthily fill whole pages: but your splendent vertues can easily b [...]e [Page] their owne Herauldes to l [...]mme forth their owne armory, and to extoll in presence, is more glauering and poeticall, then true-louing and patheticall. This onely my affection cannot conceale, your gratious demeanour, generous cariage, curtuous nature, studious endeauour, and wisedome for managing your selfe each where, (when you happely were a flourishing braunche, engrafted in the fruitfull Oliue tree of this our Athenes, that thrise famous vniuersity of Cambridge) were first the sympathizing adamants of my affection: your continuance after in all studious actions, constancy in your fauours and kind disposition (for I must needs say as hee of Augustus—Rarus tu quidem Sextus Aureliu [...] Victor▪ ad recipiendas amicitias, ad retinendas vero constantissimus) these incited mee to cause that which as a sparke lay shrowded in embers in my breast, to exhibit it selfe more apparantly in this little flame. [Page] Take this my endeauour I pray you in worth, cheerish and foster this deformed brood of my braine, in the lap (if I may so tearme it) of your good li [...] king, and in loue esteeme it faire thogh badly penzeld ouer, to wish as Daphnis said to Dam.

— [...]

Qu [...] minime sunt pulchra, en pulchra videntur amāt [...].

Theocrit. Eidyll. 6.

If the happie Daemon of Vlisses direct not the wandering planet of my witte within the decent orbe of wisedome, my stammering pen seeming far ouergon with superfluitie of phrase, yet wanting matter I answer with the poet one only word inuerted:

Qui non est hodie, cras magis aptus erit.

He that is Homers Irus for facultie to day, may bee a rich Craesus for iuention to morrow, as it is with cogitations [Page] so with actions, the second relish more of wisedome: perfection requires tract of time; Romes Capitoll was not built the first day; nor was Zeuxis his Helena sudddenly lim'd forth with one pencill. Looke not on these rapsodized lines, I pray you with a pittying [...]ie: I had rather far bee enuied then pitied.

— [...].

Pindar. Pyth. od. 1.

Melior est inuidentia commiseratione

better by much is a case hatefull then wofull. Now will I humbly take my leaue committing you to the tuition of that heauenly Tutour, whose pupils we are all: from my study in Saint Iohns X. Calend. March.

Euer most deuoted vnto you in all faithfulnesse. T. W.

To the Reader,

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KNnowledge conceald and not broached for a publicke vse, is like to a pearelesse gemme interred in the center of the earth, whereof no man knowes but he that hid it: yet is ther a due regard to be had, lest at any time it proue ab [...]rtiue, for the golden tongue of wisdome, that relisheth all not by imagination but true iudgement (whose tast neuer can be sophisticated) saies tis better not to be diuulg'd at all, then preproperously before the time. Thou maist say peraduenture, that in this I haue imitated the Amygdala, or Almon tree in Plinie: Plini. nat. hist. lib. 16. cap. 25. that so hastely buds and bringes forth her fruit: or like the Lapwing beeing lately hatched, I do run as it were with the shell on my head, that I haue soared also aboue [Page] my pitch, attempting an Eagles flight with the winges of a Wrenne, in the hie springtide of an ouerweening opinion, shewed vnto the Criticke eye the dead low ebbe of my shallow iudgement, thou maist tearm me, an Homeres Thersites, [...] or as it was saide of Traiane the EmperorIulian. in his Caesares when he vaunted of his Parthian trophee before the Gods to be [...] more respecting a sound of words then sound matter it selfe: thou maist condemne me for many an error and escape in these my ruder lines: I know right well thou vsest not to gape after gougins—

[...]raeda canum lepus est, vastos non implet h [...]atus.

Marti [...]lis.

The Ha [...]es repast for Hunds, the vaster iawes

It doth not satiat [...]—

Gentle Reader call this to mind— [...], it is farre easier not to like then to do the like. But howsoeuer thou dost either vnciuilly preiudicate my labour with a sinister conceit, misconstruing my meaning, or vncourteously censure [Page] of my inhabillitie, impeaching my good name for some things that do distast thy delicater pallate, Iacta nobis est alea, I haue set all at sixe and seuen, and I entend by the Muses fauour happelie to go on, though vnhappely I haue begū. Notwithstāding I will assoile my selfe, and make answer vnto thy former, either [...]cred surmises [...]r open cauils. For the first, if I haue imitated the Almon tree, it is to keepe in stoore a bitter almon for the prating Parrat that licentiouslie thus speaketh of me, who is alwaies like the foole, a Consonant when he should be a Mute: and a Mute when he should be a Consonant. In that I seeme to soare aloft too hie, giue mee liberty to vse Ausonius his wordes vnto Pauline, yet a little inuerted—Dicis Ausonius. Paulino epist. 19. me Icarum esse haud belle, nam summa sic appetā (spero) vt nō decidā, I hope I shall not proue an aspiring Icarus, nor another Thales in Diogenes Laertius, whoe whiles he lookt hie and was contemplating on the stars, [...]ell groueling into a deep ditch, For the third, much appertaining to euery [Page] brainsicke Na [...]cissus, I do altogether disclaim that, since it neuer so much as insinuated it selfe into the bosome of my imagination, my Genius not desiring to bee perfumed with smoky praise, or soone-vanishing and vulgar glory, cheefly vshered by selfe conceit. For my taint with Theisites and Traianes fault, I will onely vse for my defence, that speech of locaste to Eteocles.

— [...],

Euripides in his Phoe [...]issa.

[...]

Ould age (in whose brest long experience hath treasured vp great store of wisdome) can speake far more wisely and exactly then younger yeares. For the last of all, any errour committed: I answere, it may bee an errour of ignorance seene to thee, yet it is an ignorance of the errour vnseene to me, wherof if priuatly thou demandest a reason, I can; doubt not, and will make it good for thy full satisfaction, if reason can satisfie thee. Yet if not, giue leaue vnto my harsh and torne inuention, if for naught else but this, in that [Page] I derogate from no mans due desert, nor seeke to traduce any vnto their least disparagement.

Blast not with

pining

critick breath my tender bud.

My vulgare Muse respects a common good:

For thee my pen strouts on this paper stage,

Though it do act withouten aequipage:

To quench thy learned thirst I meant to draine

The Hippocren [...]an Fountaine of my braine.

My wish is good, my act I know is ill,

The first's a mountaine; this, a lowly hill.

With carping fingers let me not be scand,

Po [...]ze not the gift, but wa [...]gh the giuers hand.

I am well sure thou wilt here expect with Ang. Pol. [...]: that is, vulgar things vttered after a new sort, and nouelty after a vulgar sort; without affectation: that I should bee a rich eloquent merchant of exoticke and new found phrases: that I should intrauerse and inter [...] larde my speaches with liuely conceits: enrich thy learned eares with right Athenian iewells, illuminate the eye of thy vnderstanding with the lustre of Rhetoricall colours, that the whole worke should bee mixed with an—omne tulit punctū: And sure [Page] so farre as each thing i [...] consonant and harmonicall with iudgement, I will tender my deuo [...]re, to be sutable vnto thy scholer like expectation: for if so be wisedome doe not manage and temper all, the Muses which are pure, chast and vnspotted virgins, wil turne to meere Curtesans.

If iudgement tread not on the he [...]les of wit

And curbe inuention with his golden bit,

T'will ne'r looke backe vnto his proper want,

But still his steps will be exorbitant.

I dare not presume, nor will I rashly engage my credit to thee (courteous censurer) to promise thee▪ Amphoram, ne viceus exeat, a mountaine, lest it bring foorth that ridiculous issue in the fable, to promise thee Aristaenetus his Lais, whom hee tearmes [...]. [...] all face, for her supereminent beauty and portraitour, admirable simmetree of partes, most decent and eye pleasing lineaments of her whole body, lest that I beget an Ethiopian or a Labulla who was tearmed all nose, like Martials Tongilian of whome he thus speaketh

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Tongilianus habet nasum, scio non nego, sed iam

Nil prater nasum Tongilianus habet.

Tongilian has a goodly nose, I wis [...]e

But naught besides a nose Tongilian Tongiliani [...].

And no doubts it will be liker the latter then the former. Venus had her mole, Helena her staine, Cynthia her spots, the Swan her ieaty feete, the clearest day some clowd: nay there is nothing but if we once eye it ouer, so absolutely perfect not the smoothest writer of all, which, (at lest a Critick perusing of him) for some blemish and imperfection, merites not either Aristarchus his blacke pile, or Momus his sponge: If in the fairest thinges be such deformitie, how many more staines may then be found in this ofspring of my brain, which dare not scarcely make compare with the fowlest? Looke for better and more generous wine of the old vinetree, for as Plinie sayth—vetustioribus semper vitibus vinum melius, nouellis copiosius; would I coulde either arrogate the former, or chalenge the latter vnto my selfe, but howsoeuer [Page] I could not possibly please all, for as the Poet speaks to one Ledotus

Qui possis rogo te placere cunctis

Io: Vulteius hēdecasilla. lib. 4.

Cum iam displiceas tibi velvns?

T'is sure that at least I should not please my selfe. I might better fit a many humors in sif ting out some more pleased poeticall subiect, more correspondent to their fancy and my facultie; as intreating merily of some new discouered Isle with Lucian, to inuent withLuciā. Ver. historiatum lib. 1. him some such hyperbolicall lies, as that of Hercules & [...] whose footsteps were found to be the bignes of an aker of ground: to tell with him of flyes and pismires as big as twelue Elephants, to fraight some pamphlet de lapsu vulcani, who as Homer [...]omer. [...]ad. x. writes, was falling out of heauen into the Isle Lemnos [...] a whole day: to make some mery prognostication of strange wonders that are to ensue, as them of Ioachimus Fortius Ringelbergius, capitulated in that chapter whose title is—Ridicula quaedam & iucunda: not to plunge my selfe in these [Page] grand phisicall matters: I know these are appertinent to the Muses also—

Ouid his Nux, the Culex Maro writ,

Erasmus did in folly dye his wit

The Frog fight Homer made, and of da [...]e Mouse,

And Ianus Dousa praisd Pediculus

Hubaldus on baldmen did ver [...]ifie

Each of whose numbers words began with C.

In lib. de Antiquitate Cantab. et Oxon. In epig. Aul. Gell. 17. 12.

Beza praisd [...], Apuleius th' Asse

Plutarch Grillus who by Circe changed was

A quarta [...]e ague Fauorine did commend,

His darlings sparrow so Catullus pend

To which the Poet

Sunt etiam Musissua ludicra, mista Camanis

Ausonius.

Ot [...]a &c.

Tragicall Melpomene her selfe wil now and then put on the comicall start vp: Sage Apollo laughes once yearly at his own beard lesse naked face: the modest Muses haue their maddest reuils: the darkesomst water has his gildy streames: wise men will sometimes play with childrens rattles.

But I haue already imployed some imbeziled howrs takē from the treasury of the Muses golden time; to the gilding ouer of the like rotten subiects, as they that haue bin intimate [Page] with m [...] are not igmorant, as in my Tetligomurmomachia, a centurie of latin Epigrams, an Echo, and some other trifles which I durst not let come abroad in the chill Criticall aire lest hap they mought haue been frettisht for want of learninges true cloathing. Now haue I chosen to mingle my delight with more vtilitie, aiming not onely at witte but wisedome. I know the Paracelsian will vtterly condemne my endeauour for bringing the foure Humours on the stage again, they ha uing hist them off so long ago, & the rather be cause I once treat not of their three minerals—Sal, Surphur, and Mercurius, the Tria omnia of their quicksiluer wits, which they say haue chiefe dominion in the body, (it consisting of them) and are the causes of each disease, and cure all againe by their Arcana extracted out of them: but I waigh it not, since the tongue of an aduersary cannot detract from verity. If any the like Carpfish whatsoeuer chaunce to nibble at my credite, hee may perchaunce swallow downe the sharp hook of reproach and infamie ere he be aware [Page] which hee cannot like the Mathiolus in Dioscor. so Plin. 9. 43 Scolaopendra cast vp againe at his pleasure, I doubt not but to haue him in a string. Reader, thine eyes are to take their turnes in a gardin, wherein are growing many weedes, yet some flowers, passe by the former with kind silence, cull out and gather the latter for thine owne science: and perhaps thou maist distill the sweetest wa ter from the bitterest wormewood, as Maro built his walls by Ennius his rubbish: If thou thy selfe hast better—

Candidus imperti, si non, his vtere mecum. Idem qui pridem. Thine if mine. T. W.

THE Titles and Contents of the seuerall Chapters as they are handled in in this present booke.

1 OF Selfe knowledge. cap. 1.

2 That the soule sympathizeth with the body and followeth her cr [...]sis and temperature. cap. 2.

[Page]3 Whether the internall faculty may bee knowne by the externall phisiognomy and visage. cap. 3.

4 That a dyet is to bee obserued of euery one. cap. 4.

5 How man derogates from his excellency by surfeit & of his vntimely death. C. 5

6 Of Temperaments Cap. 6.

7 Of diuersitie of witts according to the diuerse temperature of the body. cap. 7.

8 Of the spirits. cap. 8.

9 Of a cholericke complexion. cap. 9.

10 Of a sanguine temperature. cap. 10.

11 Of the phlegmati [...] humor cap. 11

12 Of a melanche [...]ick complection C. 12.

13 Of the cōceits of melancholy cap 13.

14 Of the dreames which accompany each complection cap 14.

15 Of the exactest temperature of all whereof Lemnius speaketh cap, 15.

The close to the whole worke in verse.

FINIS.

§

§

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Of Selfe knoweledge. Chap. 1.

AS Hesiod in his Theogonie saith that the [...]gly night— [...], begat two fowle monsters Somnum & somnium: So we may not vnfitly say that the inueloped and deformed night of ignorance (for the want of that coelestiall Nosce teipsum,) begettes two mishapen monsters, (which as the Sepia's inkie humor doe make turbulent the cristallinest fountaine in man,) Somatalgia and Psychalgia, the one the dyscrafie of the body, the other the malady and distemperature of the soule: For he that is incanoped and intrenched in this darkesome misty cloud of ignorance,Munste [...] [...]. (being like the one-footed Indian people Sciopodes whose foote is so big that [Page] it shades them from the rayes of the Sunne, or rather like the Cyclops when Vlisses had be rest him of his one eye) he hath no true lampe of discretion, as a polestar to direct the shippe of his life by, in respect either of his mortall or immortall part, from being hurried vpon the shelues & mas [...]y rockes of infelicity. Of what hie esteeme and prizelesse value this rare selfeknowledge is & euer was it is very conspicuous and apparēt vnto the dimmest apprehension of all, if it doe but iustly ballance in the scoale of com mon reason, wisdome, who hath euer affectionately imbrac'd it, and to whom it is stil indeared; the heauenly source or springhe [...]d from whēce it was deriued, as also the happier effects it alway hath engendred.

Diuine Pithagoras, whome worthily the flood Nessus saluted and called by his name,Elian. as one admired of it for his flood of eloquence and torrent of wisdome, his mind being the enriched exche [...]quer and treasurie of rairest qualities, not onely had this golden posie euer on his tongues end, as the daintiest delicy he could present vnto a listning eare; but also had it emblemd forth by Minerua giuing breath vnto the [...] flute, (by which is intimated Philautia) [Page] which because with blasting it sweld her cheekes she cast away from her; Yea hee [...] scendit [...] Horat. had this coelestiall sentence, [...] which descended from the heauens, engrauen on the frontispice of his heart, euermore in an applicatiue practise, especially for himselfe: which he tearmed the wise Physicions medicinary praescript for the double health and welfare of man. Yet sententiousMenander. in his Thrasy. leon. Menander that rich-vainde Poet seemes at least to contradict this heauenly sawe for pondering with him selfe the depraued demeanour of worldly mē, the troth lesse inconstancy and perfidiousnes of our hairebraind Iasons: the inueigling and adamantizing societies of some who being polluted and infected with the rancke leprosie of il would intangle others; the viperous & vatinian deadly hate, which is v [...]ual ly masked, and lies lurking vnder the specious and faire habit of entire amitie; waighing with him selfe a many things fashioned out of the like mould, he thus spoke [...] me thinks saith hee, that is not so well spoken, knowthy selfe, as this, know others.

Howsoeuer he ment: we must not imagin that he did it to impeach any wise, this [Page] sage and graue sentence which (as that also of his) is an oracle in it proper obiect, & hiely concernes the good both of the actiuePlato in Alcibiade. and passiue part of man: though Socrates, in Plato would haue it onely to bee referd vnto the soule to haue no relation at al vnto the body, though falsely. For if the soule by reason of sympathizing with the body is either made an [...] or a [...] either a nimble swift-footed Achilles, or a limping slow▪ [...] [...], as hereafter we intend to declare, good reason the body (as the edifice or [...] of the soule) should be knowne as a part of Tei [...]sum for the good of the soule Therefore Iulian the Apostata who had flood of inuentiō, although that whole flood could not wash or rinch away that onespot of his atheisme, he (though not knowing him a right) could say the body was the chariot of the soule, which while it was well manag'd by discretion the cunning coachman, the drawing steeds, that is our head-strong and vntamed appetites, being checkt in by the golden bit of temperance, so long the soule should not bee tost in craggy waies by vnequall and tottring motion, much lesse be in danger to bee hurled downe the [Page] steepy hils of perditiō. If we do but try the words at the Lidyan or touchstone of true wisdome which d [...]iudicates not [...] to external semblances, but inter [...] ces they will sure go for [...], whether you respect the soule as principall, or the body as secundary. For [...] first [...] single out that speach of Ag [...]petus: But wee,Climax Agapeti ad [...] nianum Imperat, atque [...]e Clemens Alexand. Paed. lib. 3 cap. 1. O men, (saith hee) let vs so disciple our selues that each one may throughly know himselfe: for he that perfectly knowes him, selfe, knows God, and he that knowes him, shall be made like vnto him, and he [...] this shal be made worthy of him, more ouer he that is made worthy of him, shall do nothing [...]worthy of God, [...]. &c. But shal meditate vpon things pleasant vnto him, speaking what he meditateth and practising what he speaketh. For the last, that onely of Tullie: valetud [...] sustentatur notuta Cic. Offic. 2 suicorp. &c. the perfect and sound estate of the body (as we may consequently asseuer of the soule) is maintaind by the knowledge of a mans owne body and that chiefly, by a due obseruation of such thing [...]s at may either be [...] or a [...] [...] to nature, may be [...] the [...], [...] [Page] precious balsame therof, or else it baleful & deadly aconitū: For he that in the infancie of his knoweledge thinks that Hyosciamus and Cicuta hemlocke and henbane are fit aliment for his body, because they bee nutriment to birds, may happely at length curse the dog-starre of his owne indiscretion, for inflaming his lesse distempered braine with his vnhappy dysastrous influence. For it is vulgarly said that HyosciamusScal, Exercit. Cx lii. et cicuta hemines perimunt, [...] alimentum praebent: them two are poyson to men though foison to birdes: as Scaliger relates also.

I grant that the most direct aime of wisdome in this Nosce teipsum, lookes chiefly on the minde as the fairest marke; Yet often eyes and aimes at this other necessary obiect, which cunningly to hit, is counted equall skill, though the one farre surmount the other, especiall care is to be had as well of the christall glasse to saue it from cracking, as of the Aqua caelestis infus'd from putrifying.

But primarily it concernes the soule, as for them who are tainted with the Protoplasts selfe loue & loue of glory, who being [...] vp with the hād of fortune to the top [Page] of natures preheminence, as pety gods doe direct their imaginations far beyond the le [...]ill of humilitie beeing swolne with timpanizing pride too much, admiring thēselues with Narcissus who was inamoured with his owne beauty, of whome the poet thus speaketh.Ouid.

Dumque sitim sedare cupit sitis altera creuit,

Whiles at the fountaine he his thirst gan slaks.

An ocean of selfe-loue did him [...]retake.

Proud Arachnes who will needs contend with more cunning Minerua for spinning like Marsyas and Tham [...]ras who stroue the one with Apollo for musicke skill, the other with the Muses for melodious singing: too common an vse among all self-forgetters:Iulian. in [...]. [...]. Pa. 73. for as Iulian saith, each man is wont to admire his owne actions, but to abate the value, and derogate from the esteem of others. For those againe who with Gla [...]cus pra [...]fer [...], the regard of the body before the wel fare of the super [...]lementary soule, which chiefly should be in request for as the Stoick saith, it is a signe of an abiectEpictetus cap. lxiii. minde to beat our braines about necessaries for our vile corps, a speciall care should rather [Page] be had ouer the soule, as Mistris ouer her hand-maide, these want that [...].

Now for the body, as well it leuils at it: for those who distemper and misdiet them selues with vntimely and vnwonted surfeting, who make their bodies the noysome sepulchers of their soules, not considering the estate of their enfeebled body what will be accordant to it, not waighing their complexion contrary perchance farre to the dish they feede vpon, not foreseing by true knoweledge of themselues what will endamage and impaire their healths, infect the conduit pipes of their limpid spirits, what will dull and stupefie their quicker intelligence, nay, disable all the faculties both of soule and body, as instance mought be giuen of many, to them that haue had but a meere glympse into the histories, and ancient records of many dish moungers who running into excesse of riot, haue like fatall Parcas cut in two the lines of their owneMach on. po. De [...]p. Athen. 8. liues, as Philoxenus the Dythirambiok poet, (of whome Athenaeus speaks Deipnos. 8) who deuoured at Syracusa a whole Polypus of two cubits long, saue onely the head of the fish, at one meale, whome (being deadly sicke of [Page] the crudity) the Phisiciō told that he could not possibly liue aboue seuen hours, whose wouluish appetite not with standing would not stint it selfe euen in that extremety, but he vttered these wordes (the more to intimate his vultur-like & insaciate paunch). Since that Charon and Atropos are comd to call me away from my delicies, I thinke it best to leaue nothing behind me, wherefore let me eat the residue of the Polypus, who hauing eaten it, expir'd: who had the name of [...] by Chrys [...]ppus, as Athenaeus records and of others he was called [...] and [...] of Aristotle. And what of others? who although they did not so speedilie by ignorance of their estate, curtaile their owne dayes by vntimely death, yet notwithstanding they haue liu'd as deade vnto the world, and their soules dead vnto them selues. Dyonisyus Heracleota that rauenous gourmandyzing Harpy, and insatiable draine of all pleasant liquors, was growne so pursie that his farnes would not suffer him to set his breath, beeing in continuall feare to bee stifeled, although others affirme that hee easily could with the strong blast of his breath haue turned about the sayles of a winde-mill: Whose [Page] soule by his selfe ignorance (not knowing what repast was most conuenient for hi [...] body) was pent vp and as it were fettred i [...] these his corps as in her dungeon. So Alexander King of Aegypt was so grose and fat that hee was faine to be vpheld by twoAthen. men: And a many moe by their [...] [...] and [...] by excessiue eating & drinking, more vpon meere ignorance, the [...] rebellion against nature, physicall diet, and discretion, did make their soules like the fatned sheepe whereof Iohannes Leo relates, which he see in Egypt some of whose tailes weighed 80. pound, and some 150 pound, by which waight their bodies were immoueable, vnlesse their tailes like traines were caried vp in wheel-barrowes: Or like the fatned hogs Scalliger mentions, thatSeal. [...]: 199. could not moue for fat, and were so senselesse that mise made nests in their buttocks, they not once feeling them.

But those which I whilome named and millions besides, neuer come to the full period of their daies, dying soone because as Seneca saith they knowe not that they liue [...]: [...] controu: by deaths, and are ignorant what receit of foode into the body, (whose constitution they are as ignorant of also,) will bring endammagement [Page] both to it and to the heauenly infused soule.

For the body; this [...] is requisit; that as the meager one is to be fed with spare diet, so the massier and more gyantly body must be maintained with more large and lauish diet. For it is not consonant to reason that Alexander Macedo, & Ex Petrarch Augustus Cesar, who were but littlemen as Petrarch saith and so low-staur'd Vl [...]sses should haue equall diet in quantity with, Milo, Hercules, Aiax, and such as Atheneus makes mention of: as Ast [...]damas, & Herodorus, the first of them being so capacious stomachtAthenaeut: lib. 10. that hee eat as much alone as was prepared forix. men: and the latter Herodorus, [...] a strong-sided Trum peter, who was 3. els and a halfe long, and could blow in two trumpets at once, of whome Atheneus speakes. These might well farce and cram their mawes with far more alimente because their ventricles, cels, veines, and other organons of their bodies were far more ample and spatious.

And a [...] aine it is soueraigne in this regard, because in the ful streame of appetite or brauery many wil take vpon ignorance, ratherSuetonius. the sumtuous dish prepared for vitellius, by [Page] his brother, which one dish amounted to aboue seuen thousand, eight hundred and xii pounds, perchance a ranke poyson toPlini. lib. 22 nat. hist, cap. 22. their natures, then Estur and [...] (2. sauoury and holsome hearbs, which poor [...] Hecale set on the table as a sallet before hun gry Theseus, the best dish of meat she could present vnto him,) a great deale peraduenture more conducible vnto their healthe [...], But they are as ignorant what they take as Cambles was, who being giuen to Gastrimargisme as Athenaeus relates in the forementioned booke, in the night did eat vp his owne wise, and in the morning finding her hand in his deuouring iawes, slew him selfe, the fact being so hainous and not worthy: as also they are pilgrims and strangers in the knowledge of their bodily estate, which euer or often is an occasion of ouercloying their ventricles with such meates as are an vtter ruin and downefall to their healthes, as ill or worse then Toxicum, for although they do not ef [...]soones inforce the fatall end, yet in a short progresse of time, they are as sure pullies to draw on their inexpected destenies.

Without this knowledge of our bodily nature, we are like to crasie barkes, yet ballist [Page] with prizelesse marchandise, which are tossed too and froo vpon the maine of ignorance so long, till at length we bee shattered against the huge rocke of Intemperance, and soe loose our richest fraught, which is our soule. This ought euer to controule and curbbe in, our vnrulie appetites: it ought to be like the Poets Automedon,Seneca lib. 2. de beneficiis cap. 12 to raine our fond desires in, which raigne in [...] for as Seneca saith sunt quaedam no [...]itura impotran [...]ibus, &c. so wee may say, sunt quae [...] appetentibus; as there be many thinges which are obnoxious to the asker, if it chance he obtaine them, so are there many nutriments as dangerous to man that babishly couets thē, for if he square not his diet according to the temper of his body, in choise of such fare, as may banish and expell contagion and violency from nature, or be a speciall preseruatiue in her spotlesse and vntainted perfection; meats are soe far from holding on the race of his life, as that will rather hasten it downe far sooner vnto the hemispheare of death, thē he expected. A cholericke man therefore (by this [...]) knowing himselfe to be ouerpoizd with it predominancy, na, but euen foreseeing his corporall nature to haue a propension [Page] or inclination to this humour, hee must wisely defeate, and waine his appetite of all such dainty morsels (though the more delicious and toothsome) and delude his longing thirst, of al such honey flowing meates and hote wines as are foison to his distemperature, and which in tract of time will aggrauate this humour soe much, til it generate and breede either a hecticke feuer mortall consumption, yellow Iaundice, or any the like disease incident to this cōplexion; and so concerning all the rest. For a bare (Nosce) it is not sufficiently competent for the auoidance of death, & to maintaine a happy crasis, but the liuing answerably according to knowledge, for wee see many exquisite Physicions, and learned men of speciall note (whose exhibitories to themselues do not parallel their prescripts and aduice to others who, are good physicions, but no pliable patients) to make a diligent search and scrutinie into their owne natures, yet not fitting them with corespō dency of diet like Lucia [...]es apothecary, who gaue Physicke vnto others for coughing, and yet hee him selfe did neuer lin coughing Cunctis qui cauit noncauet ille sibi.

While hee cured others hee neglected [Page] him selfe: Wee may rightly say, [...] is their [...] and [...] their [...]

1 Crapula fit esca, deliciae eorum damna: that is their diet is luxury, and each delicy made their malady. And yet none doe more inveigh against surfet & misdiet then they, but they are like the Musipula ofOrus Apollo in hietoglyphich. whome it saide in the Hieroglyphichs that shee vseth to bring forth her issue out of her mouth, and swimming with them about her when shee is hungry, shee swallowes them vp againe, so they in externall shew spit out the name of surfet, banishing [...]t far from thē, but by their accustomable deadly luxury, againe they imbrace it, and hug it in their armes so long, till some incroching disease or other, hauing had long dominion and resiance in them be past cure of Physicke: For we knowe.

Non est in medico semper releuetur vt aeger,

Interdum docta plus valet arte malum.

No earthly art can euer cure deepe [...] ill.

Not [...] with his heauenly skill.

So then the most exact selfe-knower of [...]ll, if he doe not containe himselfe within [Page] the territories and praecincts of reasonable appetite, the Cynosura of the wiser dietest, if consorting with misdieters, he bath him selfe in the muddy streame of their luxury and riot, he is in the very next suburbs of death it selfe: Yet for this, I confesse that the siluer brest of Ni [...]us is not vitiated and polluted by others kēnel muddy thought▪ and turbulent actions or affections, no more then the riuer Alpheus, that runs hard by the salt sea, is tainted with the brackish quality of the sea, no more then the Salamander is schorcht, though dayly conuersing in the fire; or chast Zenocrates lying with Lair is defiled, since hee may well do it without impeachment to his chastity: so may the heroical and generous spirits conuerse with vnstaide appetites and yet not haue the least tang of their excesse, but by their diuiner [N [...]sce teipsum] may bee their owne gardians, both for ther Coelestiall and also earthly part▪ Yet wee know Aliquid mali propter vicinum malum, the taint of ill comes by consorting with ill, & the best natures and wisest selfe-knowers of al may bee tild on or constraind to captiuate and in thral their freedome of happy spirit, and to rebel against their owne knowledge.

[Page]I wish therefore in conclusion the meanest, if possible, to haue an insight into their bodily estate (as chiefly they ought of the soule) whereby they may shun such things as any waies may bee offensiue to the good of that estate, and may so consequently (being vexed with none, no not the least maladie) be more fit not onely to liue, but to liue well: For as the Poet saide of death— [...], to die is not ill, but to die ill: so contrar [...]wise of life wee may say, it is no such excellent thing to liue, as wel to liue; which no doubt may easily bee effected, if they doe abridge them selues of all vaine alluring lusts, and teather their appetites within the narrow-round plot of diet, lest they run at randon, and breake into the spacious fields of deadly luxury.

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Cap. 2. That the soule simpathizeth with the body and followeth her crasis and temperature.

INficitur terrae sordibus vnda flue [...]s saith the Poet: If a water current haue any vicinity with a putrefied and infected soyle, it is tainted with his corrupt quality: The heauenly soule of man as the Artists vsually auerre, sēblablewise, doth feele, as it were, by a certaine deficiency the ill affected crasis of the body, so that if this bee annoyed or infected with any faeculēt humors, it faires not wel with the soule, the soule her selfe as maladious feeles some want of her excellency, and yet impatible in regarde of her substance, though the bad disposition of the organons, the malignancy of receites, the vnrefinednes of the spirits doe seeme to affect the soule: for the second, which causeth the third, marke what Horace speaketh.

—————quin corpus onustum

Horat.

Hesternis [...] an [...]mum quoque pragrauat [...]

Atque affligit humo diuinaparticulam aura,

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The man surcharg'd with former crudities,

Waighes downe our spirits nimble faculties;

Our ladened soule as plunged in the mire,

Lies nie extinct, though part of he auens fire.

To this effect is that speech of Democritus [...] de Natura h [...]m. ad finem Hippocratis. who saith that the bodily habit being out of temper, theminde hath no liuely willingnes to the contēplation of vertue: that beeing enfeebled & ouershadowed the light of the soule is altogether darkned, heauenly wisdome as it were sympathizing with this earthly masse as in any surfet of the best and choisest delicates, & also of wines, is easily apparant. Uinum, of it owne nature is (if we may so terme it) Diuinum, because it recreats the tired spirits, makes the mind farre more nimble and actuall, and aspiring to a higher straine of wit [...], [...], saith Xenophon, it stirs vp mirth and chearefulnesse, as oyle makes the blasing flame yet by accident, the vnmanag'd appetite desiring more then reason, it doth dull the quicker spirits, stop the pores of the braine with too many vapours and grosse fumes, makes the heade totty, [...]ullabees the senses, yea, intoxicates the very soule, with a pleasing poison: as [Page] the same Xenophon saies, it happens vntoXenophon in hi [...] conuiuium which also Athenae us recor [...]s in his 11. book Deipnol. out of Xenoph. men as to tender plants, & lately ingraffed impe [...], which haue their grouth from the earth, [...] &c. when God doth water and drench them with an immoderate showre, they neither shotte out right, nor hardly haue any blowne blossoms, but when the earth doth drink in so much as is competent for their encrease, thē they spring vpright, and florishing do yeelde their fruite in their accustomed time, so fareth it with the bodies and by sequele with the soules of men, if wee poure in with the vndiscreete hand of appetite, they both will reele too and fro, and scarce can we breath, at least, we cannot vtter the least thing that relisheth of wisedome, our mindes must needs followe the tempers or rather the distemperatures of our earthly bodies.

Plato, in whose mouth the Bees as in their hiues did make their hunny combs, as foreintimating his sweete, flowing eloquence, he weighing with himselfe that thraldome the soul was in being in the body, and how it was affected, and (as it were) infected with the contagion therof, in his Phaedrus, as I remember, disputing of the Idaeaes of the [Page] mind, said, that our bodies were the prisonsSo Iulian in an epistle to [...]ugenius 190. hath such a saying [...] &c. Gorgia [...] and bridewels of our soules, wherein they lay as manicled and fettered in Giues. Yea further hee could auouch in his Cratylus, and also in his Georgias: Socrates hauing brought forth a speach to Callides, out of Euripides [...] to liue is to die; and to dye is to liue: he saith there, that our body is the very graue of the soule, [...] (saith hee) [...]. And sure it is that whiles this mind of ours hath his abode in this darkesome dungeō, this vile mansion of our body, it can neuer act his part well, till it step vpon the heauenly stage, it will be like [...]o in Ouid, whoe being turned into a hee [...]er, when shee could not expresse her minde toOuid: Metamorph. Inacus her father in words,

Littera-pro verbis, quampes in puluere duxit,

Corporis indicium mutati triste peregit.

Her foot did speake, as on the sand she ranged,

How she poore soule was frō her selfe estrāged.

Our soule in the bodie, though it be not so blind as a Batt, yet is it like an Owle, or Batt before the rayes of Phaebus al dimmed and dazeled: it sees as through a lattissewindow. [Page] Being freed from this prison, & once hauing flitted from this ruinous [...]ennament, this mud-wald cottage, it is a Linceus, within a Molewarpe, without it is an all [...]eyde Argus, within an one- [...]y de Cyclops: without a beautifull Nireus: within an Aethiopian Thersites: without a hie soaring Egle, within a heauy Struthio Camelus, an Aestridge, who hath winges as hee in the Hieroglyphicks witnesseth, non propter volatū, sed cursum, not for flying, but to helpe her running: yea as sparkles hid in embers, do not cast forth their radiant light, and the sunne invelloped in a thicke mistie cloud, doth not illuminate the center with his goulden Tresses, so this coelestiall fire our soule, whiles it remaines in the lap of our earthly Prometheus, this masse of ours, it must needs be curtained and ouer-shadowed with a palpable darkenesse, which doth ouer-cast a sable night ouer our vnderstanding, especially when in the bodie there is a current of infectious humours, which doe flow ouer the veines, and ingrosse the limpid spirites in their arteries, the minde must needes bee as it were oreflowne with a Deucalions floode, and bee quirkened as a sillie toyling Leander in the [Page] Hellespout. What made the minde of Orestes so out of temper that he kild his owne mother, but the bodily Crasis? what made Heracleitus die of a dropsie hauing rowlde himselfe in beastes ordure? what made Socrates hauing drunke the Cicuta at Athens to giue his vltimum vale to the world, but that? what caus'd that redoubted famous captaine Themistocles hauing drunke Bulls blood, to take (as we say) his long iourney to the Elysian feilds? and many others to haue com'd vnto their long home (as may be seene in the ancient registers of time) and many to haue beene distraught, and frantick, the distemperature no doubt, & the euill habit of the bodie where-with the soule hath copulatiō. Plotin the great platonist, he blushed often that his soule did harbour in so base an [...]nne as his body was, so Porphyry affirmes in his life: because (as he said in an other place) his soule must needes bee affected with the contagious qualities incident vnto his bodi [...]. The cunningst swimmer that euer was, Delius himselfe could not shew his art, nor his equal stroke in the mud: a cādle in the lanterne can yeld but a glimmering light through an impure and darksome horne: [Page] the warelike Steed cannot fet his friskes, take his carreers, and shew his curuets being pent vp in a narrow room, so it is with the princely soule, while the bodie is her mansion said he; but this belongs to an other Thesis and some thing before, concerning the souls excellency, hauing taken her flight from this darksome cage; more neare vnto the scope at which wee must aime. Heare what the Poet sayth in his xv. of the Metamorphos.

Quolque magis [...], sunt qui non corpora tantum

Verum an [...]mos etiam valeant mutare liquo [...]es:

—(u [...] [...] est [...] Salmacis vnd [...]

A Ethi [...]pesque [...]? quos [...] fa [...]cibus hausit

[...] furis, aut patitur mirum grauitate soporem.

"It is a wonderment that waters [...]

Salm [...]c i [...] where the [...]vinph and Hermoph [...]a ditus. we [...]e [...]ovnd together

"Transsorme the members and the mind of man:

"Who kenneth not th'vncleane Salmacian well,

"The [...] where sun-burnt Mauritanians dwell?

"Which cause a frensie, being gulped downe,

"Or strike the senses with a sleeping swoone.

Wee must not imagine the mind to bee passible, beeing altogether immateriall, that it selfe is affected with any of these, corporall thinges, but onely in respect of the instruments which are the hād-maids [Page] of the soule: as if the spirits bee inflamed, the passages of the humours dāmed vp, the braine stuffed with smoakie fumes, or any phlegmaticke matter, the blood too hote and too thicke, as is vsuall in the Seythians and those in the septētrionall parts, who are of all men endowed with the least portion of witt and pollicy: and because these kind of people, doe as it were crosse the hie way of my invention, I will treat a little of them, neither beeside that which we haue in hand: because it will confirme the fore-writen words of Xenophon concerning wine. Whom doe wee euer reade of more to quaffe and carouse, more to vse strong drinkes then the Scythians, and who more blockish, and deuoide of witt and reason? nay there was neuer any learned man, but onely Anacharsis, was an inbred there: which want no doubt is caused by their great intemperance. For all writers well nie agree in this, that they will as the Poet saith, ad diurnam stellam, or strenué pro [...] potare: drinke till their eyes stare like two blazing starres as we say inA thenae [...]s lib. [...]. Deipnosophist. pa 427. our prouerbe. Athenae [...]s that singular scholler of so manifold reading: after hee had rehearsed Herod: his history of Cleome [...]ns [Page] saith [...] &c. the Lac [...]demoniās when they wold drink in lauish cups extraordinarily, they did vse this word [...], to imitate the Scythians, which also he notes out of Chaemeleon Heracleotes in his booke [...]: when also they should haue said to the Pincerna [...], powre in, they vsed this word [...].

Howsoeuer we read of some particulars, it is manifest if we peruse the histories that the most of them are the greatest bouzers, and bussards in the world: they had rather drinke out their eyes then thatFusc. speaks thus Perdere dulcius est potando quā vt mea seruem Erodenda pigris lumina vermicu. lis. the wormes shoulde eate them out after their death, as Sir Thomas More i [...]asts vpon Fuscus in his Epigrames: & of all men they haue most leadē conceits and drossy wits: caused especially by their excessiue intemperance, which thickneth their blood, & corrupteth their spirites, and other organons wherein the soule shoulde cheefely shew her operation. Giue mee leaue to speake a little of the ayre: how it receaued into the body doth either greately aduantage or little availe the mind. It is certaine that the excellency of the soule followes the purity of the heauens, the temperature of the ayre: therefore because Boeot [...]a [Page] had a [...]ery * rennish soyle, a grosse and vnrefined ayre, the ancient writers to decypher& yet it may be gathered by the much eating [...] Athen. lib. x. and shaddow out a dull witt in any one, were wont to say Boeoticum hic habit inge [...]ium, this man is as wise as a woodcock, his wits in a consumption, his conceit is as lancke as a shotten Herrin. I doe not cōcord with the Poet in that triuial verse, but I doe carry the comma a little further and say.

C [...]lum non, [...] mutant qui [...].

At least if I must needes take coelum for aire, I will say.

The aire to vary is not onely found,

But wit's a forreiner in f [...]rreine ground.

The ayre hath his etymologie from the greeke worde [...] to breath, it consistes of [...] and [...], because the learned say, that it is the beeginning and ending of mans life: for when wee begin to liue, wee are sayd to inspire, when we die, to expire: as the priuation of the aire deprives vs of our being, and the aire being purged and clensed from his pestilent qualities causeth [Page] our well-beeing, so the infection of the aire, as in the extinguishing of some blazing comet, the eructation of noysome vapours from the bosome of the earth, the disastrous constellation or bad aspect of some maleuolent planet, the vamping fumes that the Sun eleuates from boggs and fennish grounds, the inflammation of the ayre by the intense heate of the sunne, (as when in Homers Iliad, Phaebus is fained to send forth his direfull arrowes among the Grecians, and [...]o bring in the pestilence vppon them) this infection causeth our bodyes first to bee badly qualified, and tainted with a spice of corruption, and so by consequent our very soules to be ill affected. AEneas Syluius in his CosmographyAneas Syluius cap. 92 de Asia minore. writing of the lesser Asia records a strange thing concerning the ayre beeing putrified, hee sayes that hard by the cittie Hierapolis there is a place tearmed Os PLVTONIVM, in the vally of a certaine mountaine, where Strabo witnesseth that he sent sparrowes in, which forth with as soone as they drew in the venemous noysome ayre they fel downe dead: no doubt, but the corrupted ayre would haue had his operation vppon other more excellent [Page] creatures thē were those little birds, if they durst haue attempted the entrance in. But to a question: what reason can be alleag'd that those who won vnder the pole, neare the frozen zone, and in the septentrionall climate, should haue such gyantly bodies and yet dwarfish wits, as many authors doe report os them, and wee fee by experience in trauaile, the rudenes and simplicitie of the people, that are seated far north, which no doubt is intimated by a vulgar speach, when wee say such a man hath a borrell wit, as if wee said boreale ingenium: Whereof, that old-english prophet of famous memory (whome one fondly [...]earm'd Albion [...] ballade maker, the cunnicatcher of time, and the second dish for fooles to feede their splenes vpon) G. Chaucer tooke notice when in his prolog to the Frankleines taile he saies.

But Sir [...], because I am a [...]orrell man

Borel.

At my beginning first I yow beseach,

Haue me excusd of my rude speach.

The Philosophers to this question haue excogitated this reason: to wit the exceeding chilnes of the aire, which doth possesse [Page] the animall spirits, (the chiefe attendants of the soule to exequute the function of the agent vnderstanding) with contrary qualities the first being cold and drie, the last hote and moiste: though this reason most auaile for our purpose speaking how the minde can bee affected with the ayre, yet I must needs say I thinke they are beside the cushian: others affirme and with more reason that they are dul-witted especially by the vehement heat which is included in their bodies, which doth inflame their spirits, thick [...]n their blood, and therby is a cause of a new grosse, more then ayry substance, conioynd with the spirits: for extreame heat doth generate a grosse adust choler which comes to be mixed with the blood in the veines, and that brings a condensation and a coagulation to the blood: for their extraordinary heat it is apparant by their speedy concoction, and by the externall frigidity of the ayre that dams vp the pores of their bodies so greatly, that hardly any heat can euaporate: this also, by deep wels which in winter time be luk [...] warme, and in summer season exceeding cold, now to proue that where the blood is thickned, and the spirits inflamed there vsually [Page] is a want of wit, the great peripate [...] him selfe affirmeth it to bee a truth, where he saith that buls, & such creatures as haue this humor thick, are commonly deuoid of wit, yet haue great strength, and such liuing thinges as haue an attenuated blood and very fluid doe excell in wit and pollicy as instance is giuen in Aristotle of bees. We must note here, that this is spoke of the remoter parts neare vnto the pole, lest we derogate any thing from the praise of this our happy Ileland (another blisfull Eden for pleasure) all which by a true diuision of the climes is situated in the septentrional part of the world, wherein there are and euer haue beene as praegnant wits, as surpassing politicians, as iudicious vnderstandings, as any clime euer yet afforded vnder the cope of heauen.

But I doe here passe the limits of laconisme, where as I should in wisdome imitate the Aegyptian dogs in this whole tractate, who doe drinke at the riuer Nilus [...], in haste and by stealth, lest the Crocodile should pray on them, and who doth fitly cary the name and conditions of the Crocodile, no writer is ignorant of. I will therefore end with the [Page] iteration of the Thesis, that the soule followes the temper of the body, and that whiles it is inherent in the body, it can n [...] uer partake so pure a light of vnderstāding as when it is segregated, and made a free denizen in the heauenly citty, and free holde of the saintes

Corporis in gremi [...] d [...]m spiritus &c.

when our imprisoned soule once more being free,

Gins scale the turret of eternitie,

From whence it once was raught & captiue [...]

By this vsurping tyrant corps, he [...] bane,

Which subiugates her vnto s [...]ttish will

And schooles her vnder passions want of skill.

Then shall our soul [...] now chock't with fenny care

With Angel [...] frollicke in ap [...]rer aire:

This low NADIR of darknes must it she [...]de

Till is aloft toth'radiant ZENITH wende.

[Page]

Cap. 3. Whether the internall faculty may be knowne by the externall physiognomie.

SOcrates that was tearmed the Athenian Eagle, because hee could looke stedfastly vpon the Sun, or the rather for his quicke insight of vnderstanding, when a certaine youth being hielie commended vnto him for his rare partes, and admirable endowments, though hee had the pearcing eies of Lynceus, and could haue more then coniectured his qualities being presented vnto him, he did not looke vnto his outwarde feature, and externall hew, so demurring to haue rendred his approbation of him, but hee accosted him with these wordes, loquerepuer vt te videam lets heare the reason youth, that I may see what's in thee (to which Lipsius alluded in a certaine epistle of his; videre et non alloqui nec videre est: to see one and not conferre with him, is not to see). Socrates in sinuated thus much vnto vs, that a man may bee a [Page] Nireus in outwarde semblance, and yet a Thersites in his inward essence: like the Em perours table whose curtaine was drawne ouer with Lyons and Eagles, but on the table, were pourtrayed, Apes, Owles, and Wrens: or like the golden box that kept Neroes beard, perchance the eye of his vnderstanding was dazeled, as when Euripides Pe [...]on. Ar. bit. 5. gaue him Heracleitus his workes called [...], demanding of him his censureDiog. La [...]rtius. who answered that which I conceiue is rare, and so I thinke of that which I doe not conceiue, hauing that deepe insight and singular wisdome which Apollos Oracle did manifest to bee in him, he mo [...]e eath haue perceiu'd the former & conceiu'd the latter, but was not cunning Zophyrus his iudgement also tainted concerning Socrates himselfe? Who seeing his deformed countenance called him an idiot and a dissard and an effeminate person and was laught to scorne of them that stood by for his paines, but Socrates said, laugh not, Zophyrus is not in a wrōg box, for such a naturall was I framed by nature, though I haue by the study of wisdome and philosophy corrected that which was a defect in nature; the philosopher saith vultus est index animi, [Page] the eye is the casemēt of the soule, through which wee may plainely see it, better then hee that saw Antisthenes his pride through the chinks of his cloake: but our vsuall saying is, that the tongue is the hearauld of the minde, the touchstone of the heart, could a man discerne wise Vlysses, onely by hisHomer in his 3. booke of the Iliad. countenance? Heare what Homer sayes of him: Illiad 3.

— [...]

Whan that discrete Ulisses vp did stand,

And swaide the golden scepter in his hand

I [...]oueable both it and he were found

Fixing a bas [...]full visage on the ground:

Most like an Idiot rose hee from his stoole,

Th [...] [...]'st haue deemd him angry or a foole:

But when he spoke, his ple [...]teous words did flow

Like to thick-falling flakes of winter snow▪

N [...] any c [...]uth his wit so hiely straine,

[Page]As wise Vlisses in his flowing vaine.

Which also Tryphiod [...]rus the AEgiptian poet that writ of the sacking of Troy sets downe elegantly to the same effect of Ulisses. Triphiodo. rus the AEgiptian poet.

— [...]

By him impetuous Miner [...]a stoode

And drēcht his throate with hunny nectar flud:

A mopeide foole he rising, first was deemd,

Because with Tellus to consult he seemd

A ratling murmur eft his voice affordes

Opening the ore▪flowing springhead of his words:

Like torrents of mellifluous snow inf [...]re th'Sun,

His sacred Hippocrene gins to ru [...]e.

So AEsope the witty fabulist, as we may read in his life, what deformity wanted he externally? and what beautie had hee not internally? likewise Galba on whom Tullie, [Page] (seeing his ill-shap't lims and his excellent witt,) had this conceit: ingenium Galbae male habitat: Galbaes wit lodges in a base Inn: and Sappho that learned poetresse had the same naturall default for her outward lineaments, yet had most rare guifts of minde, she thus spoke of her selfe:

Ing [...]nioformae damna rependo [...]eae.

Th'ill fauour, and deformitie of face,

With vertues inward beauty I do grace.

Againe, all is not gold that glistereth; I [...] pario tumulo p [...] tridū cadauer: marmoreu [...] carcer impius fur. Iul. Scalliger, E [...]idorpidū lib. 40. Look Hippolitus de consi [...] et cōfiharibus pag. 101. euery persian nose argues not a valiant Cyrus: we often see plumbeam macheram in aurea vagina, as the Cynick said in D. Laertius concerning a young man, that was well proportioned and spoke ill, a leaden rapier in a golden sheath: wrinckled faces and rugged browes lurke vnder smooth paint: the faire-brācht Cypres tree fruitles and bar ren: a putrified nutmeg gilden ouer: Diomedes his brazen armour shine like golde: Aesopes larua, (O quale caput, at cerebrum non habet) a rare head but no braines: many a gaudy outside and a baudy deformed inside; a wooden leg in a silken stocking: so a faire [Page] and beautiful corps, but a fowle vgly mind. We see a beautifull Paris, of whome Coluthus the Thebane saies, whan Helena carriedColuthus the Theban poet in his booke called Helens rape. him to hir chamber.

—— [...]

Her eyes could neuer be glutted with gazing on him: and yet his iudgement was in the waine, in giuing the golden ball to fading beauty, which is but a pleasant poyson, onely a letter of commendation, as Seneca calles it a dumbe praise, yea a very something of nothing. But howsoeuer it come to passe that in some particulars it holdteh thus, it is not true in generall: for as a Fox is knowne by his bush, a Lion by his paw, an Asle by his eares, a Goate by his beard, so easily may a mā be discerned, I meane the excellency of his soule by the beauty of his body, the endowments of the former by the complements of the latter. When I do gaze with a longing looke the comelinesse of the feature without, I am more then halfe perswaded of the admirable decency within: as when I see the splendent raies of the Sunne, it bewraies the Sun hath a complete light within: the clearer & fairer the foūtaine is to the eie the sweeter it will proue vnto the taste: the purest waters [Page] are distilled from the choysest flowers: fowle vices are not the offpring offaire faces; a vulgar weede ishues not from the silkewormes smother threed: the Hyblaean Bee sucks no sweete hunny out of the poisonous hemlocke: when we see a body as framed, and wrought out of the purest virgins waxe, as tempered with the cunning hands of beautie and fauour, inriched with the very prodigality of nature, which nature and beauty it selfe would be abashed and euen blush to behold, shall we say this golden mine, affords leaden mettall? Raram facit misturam cum sapientia forma, saith Petronius Arbit: and the other, gratior est pulchro veniens e corpore virtus: doe they speake as though it were a wonder, a rare thing to see wit, wisedome and vertue iump in one with beauty? let him speake that dayly sees not the cōtrary. I think (though [...]ou euer) wise mē williudge according to the proportiō of mēbers not laugh fondlySir Thom. More in his 2. of the Eutopia. as they did at the embassadours that were deckt and adorn'd with pretious pearles, foolishly adoring their pages for them selues, whome they deemd to haue beene the embassadours for their plainenesse. Ther's none so blinde but Apollos spectacles [Page] will make him see: if a mā be indowed with wisdome and haue Tir [...]sias his bright lampe of vnderstanding, the true candle of Epictetus which is to bee held at a farre greater prize, but he may easily see by thē what a man is at the first glaunce, his inward vertues by his outward gifts. And Socrates no doubt could eath haue yeelded welnie as sincere a iudgement concerning him, of whom we whilome spake, by nerely beholding of his beautifull lineamentes, as by hearing of his speeches ornaments. But he did it perchaunce to bee a patterne of true knoweldge to ignorance, who hath not a iudicious eye, and which is prone to censure too far by the outward resēblance: or els to instruct knowledge itselfe, in this that alway to see is not to know.

Who can not see also the deformitie of the soule by the blemishes of the bodie? though it bee not a truth in euery particular, as not in the former. Heare what the poet affirmes in an epigram vppon a slowpac'd lurdame.

Tardus es ingenio vt pedibus, natura etenim dat

Exterius specimen quod latet interius.

Thy lea [...]en heels no golden wit doth show,

[Page]For in-b [...]ed gifts by outward li [...]s we know.

Who could not haue cast Thersites his water with but once looking vpon the Vrinall as we say; seeing in his body so great deformitie, hee sure would haue auerred that in his soule there was no great conformity: he had one note, especially which is a badde signe in phisiognomy which Homer reckons as one of his mishapes.

[...]—

Acuminato erat eapite, his head was made like a broch steeple, sharp and hi [...] crownd, which among all physiognomers imports an ill affected minde. Who is ignorant, that men of greater size are seldome i' the right cue, i' the witty vaine; who knowes not that little eyes denotate a large cheuerill conscience? a great head a little portion of wit? goggle eyes a starke-staring foole? great eares to bee a kin to Midas, to be metamorphyzde Apuleies? spatious▪breasted, long-lif't, a plaine brow without furrowes to be liberall? a beautifull face most commonly to note the best complexion? who knowes not that [...] &c. they [Page] that be soft-flesht are more wise, and more apt to conceaue? and Albertus sayes that these are the signes of a wit, as dull as a pig of lead to witt thicke nayles, harsh haire, and a grosse hard skinne: the last whereof, was verified in Polidorus a foole, of whome AElian makes mention, who had such a hard thick skin, that it could not bee pearced through with pricking. Who is not acquainted with this of the philosopher that [...], a fat belly has a leane ingenie: because much meat affects the subtile spirits with grosse, and turbulent fumes which doe darken the vnderstanding: and this is sett downe by a moderne english poet of good note pithyly in two verses.

Fat paunches make leane pates, and grosser bitts

Enrich the ribs but bankrout quite the witts.

Wherefore the Ephory among the Lacedemonians were wonte (not as Artaxerxes did lash the coates of his captaines when they had offended) to whip their fat fooles naked, that they mo [...]e become leane: saying vnto them that they were neither fitt for action nor contemplation, vntill they [Page] were disburdened of their fogg.

Cap. 4. That a diet is to bee obserued of eueryone.

THe auncient aphorisme is: Quimedicé viuit, miseré viuit, he that obserues a strict dyet is seldome at ease: which sinister exposition is not to bee approued: rather thus, he that liues vnder the hand of the vnskilfull empirick, is euer in feare aud perill of death: for vnlesse the phisicion wisely obserue the disease of the patient, how he is affected, the time when, the climate where, the quātity how much, his age and strength, his complection with euery circumstance, hee may prescribe a potion of poyson for an antidotum or preseruatiue. Therefore as Dionisius the tirant would neuer haue his beard shaued, beecause hee feared the ray sour mo [...]e cutt his throte, so vsing hot burning coales, wherwith he often singed his haires: so were it good for euery patient not to be too ventrous, but feare to fall into the hands of the [Page] in expert phisicion, I meane Empyricall, as also the methodist or dogmatist if they be chiefly noted to giue vsuall probatums to trie conclusions, that will in a trice bee as AEsculapius his drugges either ad sanitatem or mortem to health or death: (such as Hermocrates was in the poet, of whom Andragoras Martial. lib. 6. Epig. Liii but dreaming in his sleepe, dyed ere morning, he stood in such feare of him:) whereas in true phisicke there is a time with dyet for preparation, a time for operation, another for euacuation, and a time for restauration, these cannot on a sudden be all performed without great hazard of the patients life, and the agents credit. But as it is a point of wisdome not to approue of some, so it is a fondlings part to disallow all: chiefely so to stand in feare of all, as hee did in Agrippa, who neuer saw the phisicion but hee purged: and it is meare folly at an exigent, either not to craue the helpe of the artist, or not to vse a phisicall diet, if it be prescribed by wisedome; wee must not imagin that any man in an extremity if he liue medicè, that he liues miserè. For phisicke in time of need and a golden diet, is the onely meanes vnder heauen to prolong the dayes of man which otherwise [Page] would be abbreuiated: I doe not speake againe the diuine limitation. What saith the schoole of diet.

Pone gulae met as, vt sit tibilongior [...]tas,

Esse cupi [...] sanus? sit tibi parca manus.

Let meager appetite be reasons page,

Let hunger acton d [...]ets golden stage:

Let sparing bits go downe with meriment,

Long liue thou then in th' Eden of content.

Thus the verses are to be vnderstoode, though the couetous Incubo [...]s of the world who liue like Tantalus, inter vndas siticul [...]si, haue appropriated the sense to their own vse, after a iesting manner, saying it should not bee gulae but aur [...], referring also p [...]rca manus to auaritia.

P [...]e aur [...] metas vt sit &c.

The allufiō to Martiall, where he [...]ayes, cuius [...] area flag [...]ilat opes.

With iron lashes scourge thy gadding gold,

The sight of it reuiues thee being old:

And wilt thou liue in health and merry cheare,

Then liue in wealth, and giue not a denee [...]e.

So they will vnderstand parca m [...]nus; [Page] but this by the way. Temperance and a diet should bee vsed in all things, lest that we leauing the golden meane, and with corrupted iudgements imbracing the leaden extremity (kissing with Ixion a shadow for the substance, a mere cloud for Iuno) swimming as it were with the eddy and current of our base humours, wee do perish on the sea of voluptuousnes, long before we come to our wished port. But as Iulian the Apost. saies in his Misop. [...]. We all are such dullards that we onely heare of the name of temperāce, but what value it is of, what happy effect it hath we are altogether ignorant: at least we neuer vse it. We be like to the Athenians of whom Anaximander saide that they had good lawes but vsed ill, we nusle serpents in our owne bosomes, our vile affections, following their swinge so longe till they sting vs to death.

A diet consists properly in a tempera [...] vse of meats and drinkes, secondarily o [...] sleepe, Venus, vesture, mirth, and exercise. First we must obserue a dyet in ou [...] feeding, to eate no more then will suffice nature, though at one time more then another: [Page] as the prouerbe runs: A little in the morning's inoughe, inoughe at dinner's but little, a little at night is too much: we must not at any time or occasion cram our mawes with Persian delicats, and glut our selues like Epicures with dilicious viande, not eate, like the Agrigentines, of whom Plato sayes [...]. So AElian also testifies of them: Agrigentini aedificant quidem quasi semper victuri, convinantur quasi semper morituri: they build as if they might euer liue, and banquet as if they were alwayes about to dye. Wee must call to minde Epictetus his saying [...] &c. we must vse such thinges as serue our bodies vnto the vse of our soules as meate, drinke, aray and the like: not to satisfie our bestiall appetite. Herein is our default in this when we make our [...], [...], that is diet our surfeit, as we spoke of some before. For drinkes, wee must not like bowzers carouse bowle after bowle to Bacchus his dyety, like the Graecians, not vse smaller cuppes in the beginning of our banquet, more large & capacious bowles at the latter end: we must not like Lapithes drinke our selues horne mad: wee must [Page] not so highly account wine as Br [...]to did, who made his stomach the caske or wine vessell, of whom Vulteius thus speaks.10. Vulteius in his 1. hendecas.

Brito tam pretiosa vina credit,

Vt ventrem faciat cadum [...].

So in the Comoedie, Quasi tulag [...]am dicas, vbivinum solet esse Chium. Palinurus cals the old wife a flagon o [...] stone bottle for wine.Curcul. act. 1, [...]aen. 1. We will hauing so good occasion to speak of so good a subiect, incidently tr [...]ata little of Wine, of the vertues thereof, whether it be also good, and diet drinke sor all complections: suffer me a little tam toco, quam serio. [...], Wine, saith Plato in his Cratylus, it comes of [...] because, it fills the mind with variety of opinion and conceit, &c. foecundi calices quem, &c. or it is deriued, [...] of help which Homer proues— [...], It will help if thou drinkest it. That Cypria [...] poetsaith:

[...]

The Gods O Mencla [...]s haue giuen strong [Page] wines vnto mortall men to dispell cloudy cares, Henry Stephane, in the imitation of that old verse in the poet thus speakes.

Nulla salus lymphit, vinum te poscimus omnes

Henricus Stephanus in parodiis suis.

Afigge for Thales waterie element,

Lyaeus wine we craue, wits adiument.

And for wine, especially for larger draughts, Clemens sayes a yong man in theClemens. paedag. cap. 2. hot meridian of his age, ought to be abstemious: and he wils such a one to dine sometimes with onely dry thinges and noe moisture, much lesse distemperatly hot, that so the superfluous humidity of his stomach may be euacuated. He shewes also that it is better (if a man do drinke) to take wine at supper then at dinner▪ yet a little modicum [...] non ad contumeli [...] crateras. And for old men they may vse it more lauishly, by reason of their discreete reasō & age, wherewith as he speaks, with a double anchor castinto the quiet hauen, they can more easily abide the brunt of the tempest of desires, whch is raised by the flouds of their ebriety.

Of all complections, the meane of wine [Page] is soueraigne for the Phlegmaticke, and helpes the Melancholicke; for the other two hoter, it little rather serues for inflamation then conseruation, in both the first, it helpes concoction, infuses a liuely heate into the benummed faculties, cheares vp the dull and drowping spirits, puts to flight the sable night of fond fansies, purges out the feculent lees of melancholy, refines and purifies the inward partes, opens the obstructions of the veines, like Medeas drugges, makes one young againe. It will make of a puling Heraclitus, a laughing Democritus, and it will make of Democritus an Heraclitus.

On weeping Heraclite, thou e'r dost frowne,

Thou saist thy pattern's laughing Democrite:

But whiles thou laughst, the teares sal trickling

Thou'rt thē beholden vnto Heraclite.

God Bacchus sais, teares he hath le [...]t tothee, downe.

More to set o [...]t thy mirth and iollity.

[...] &c. saith Zenophon, in the place abouePapauer, vinum mandragoras fomnum prouocant. Aristot: de somn, et vigilia. mentioned, Wine luls a sleepe the mindes of men, and like Mandragoras mitigates sorrow and anguish, and calmes the roughest tempest of whatsoeuer more vehement imagination, scourgeth in any [Page] man; making him voide of all perturbation, as Creta is free from infecting poyson: It is like the Lapis Alchymichus, the Philosophers stone, which can conuert a leadē passion, into any golden sweete content, which passion chiefly goeth hand in hand with melancholy, they being combin'd and linckt together, like the Gemelli of Hippocrates, who neuer but by violence were disioyned the one from the other. Wine is diuersly tearmed of the Poets, The wittes pure Hippocrene, the very Heliconian streame, or Muses fount, wherin they bathe their beauteous lims, as in the trans-parent and limpid streames of Paradise, or the Galaxie or milky way it self, of them celestiall swimmers: It is an extracted-Elix [...]r, a balsame, a quintescence, the R [...]s-solis to recall the duller spirits that are fallen as it were, into a swowne: Inuention and smooth vtterance do follow Bacchus, as the [...] or Caltha is wont to moue with the Sunne: for, if the wit be manicled in the braine, as pent vp in closer prison, or the tongue haue a snayle-like deliuery, her speach seeming as afraid to encounter with the hoarers apprehension, wine will make the one [Page] as nimble-footed as Heraclitus was, who could runne vpon the toppes of eares of corne without bending their blades, and the other as swift as winged Pegasus, words flowing with so extemporary a streame, that they will euen astonde the hearer. Wine is another Mercuries Caduceus, to cause a sweete consent and harmony in the actions of the soule, if▪t chance there be a mutinie, to charme (being of the nature of the Torpedo) and cast all molestation and disunion into a deade sleepe; asCornel. Agrip. the Fif [...] is wont to physicke the vipers sting; or as Orpheus his hymne did once allay the Argonautickes storme: It is called of the Hebrewes, [...] laiin sayes one, quasi [...], Iaadsnephesh, the hande of the ioule, or [...], Iamin, the right hand of the minde, because it makes any conceit dexterical, one of the two things, for which a pregnant Poet (as imagine of Homer, Naso, or any other) especially is to be admired: as Aristo: saith, who brings in Aeschilus, askingAristophan. Ranae. Act. 4. Scoe. 2. of Eur [...]pides, why a Poet ought to be had in so high esteeme, who answered;— [...] [ [...]] [...], That is, for his dexterity of wit, and his taxing and displing the worlde, with his aldaring [Page] Satyricall pen: it makes him right eloquent, and speake with aliuely grace,Frideric [...] Mille [...]manus.

O quantum debes dulci facundia Baccho?

Ipse vel epoto Nectare Nestor ero.

How much doth wit to Dithyrambus owe,

Since after wine the ebbingst wit doth flow?

It makes a Poet haue a high straine of inuention in his works, fa [...] beyond the vulgar vaine of Aquapotores-waterdrinkers: [...]orat. epist. lib. 1. This inuested Ho [...]er with a—laudibus arguitur, &c. The Muses are commended for a—vina oluerunt, &c. Cato had his—S [...]pe mero incaluit virtus: This made theCar. 3. lib. od. 21. Of a poets praise looke AEnaeas Syluius. Castalianist or Poet of yore, to bee esteemed and tearmed—the A perse A▪ of all Artistes; the Summa totalis of witte: the second dish, the marmalade and sucket of the Muses: the Gods Nepenth [...] of a soule halfe-deade with melancholie: the seauen mouth'd Nilus, or seauen-flowing Euripus, offacultie: the loade-stone of liuely con▪ ceite: the paragon, darling, and one eye of Minerua, as Lipsius tearmes him: yet moderation is presupposed, for there is no thing, whose eminence may not haue an [Page] inconuenience, as the Linx hath a quicke eye, but a dull memory, so the Polypus is suauis ad gustum, but difficilis adsomnum; & much more in thinges is there inconuenience, whose eminence is made inconuenience: so much wine rauisheth the taste, but bewitches and stupefies all th'other senses, and the soule it selfe. Take it sparingly, and it rapts one vp into an Elysium of diviner contemplation, not inthralling the minde (as excesse is wont) but endenizing it into a happy freedome, and ample liberty.

An Apostroph. to the Poet translated.

Then quench thy thirst in Heliconian spring,

Vnloose the fetters of thy prisoned braine:

To let inuention caper once aloft.

In a leuoltoes imitation,

With Ariost [...]es nimble geni [...],

Beyond a vulgar expectation;

Then mount to th'highest region of conceite,

And there appeare to th'gazing multitude,

A fierie meteor, or a blazing starre,

Which hap may cause a penury of wit,

To those that happily do gaze on it.

Nothing elaborates our concoction [Page] more then sleepe, exercise and wine say the Philosophers: but the wine must be generosum, not vappa, it must not haue lost his head. Three thinges note the goodnes of Wine.

Color,

Odor,

Sapor,

Si haectria habe at tum [Cos] dicitur, ex prioribus Heidelfeldus in his Sphi [...]x philosophica. Vel [...]ebraic [...] reapse calix. non. adulterat. literis harum praecedentium vocum; then is it pure, and the whetstone of a mans wit, when it hath a fresh colour, a sweet fuming odour, and a good relishing taste. That there is a great helpe in it against melancholy it may appeare by Zeno the crabbetree-fac'd Stoicke, who was [...], moued with no affectiō almost, but as soon as hee had tasted a cuppe of Canarye, hee became of a powting Stoicke, a mery Greeke, merum moerorem adimit: Bacchus is a wise Collegian, who admits meriment, and expels dreriment: sorrow carries too pale a visage, to consort with his claret deity: but howsoeuer I haue spoken largely of the praise of it, and somewhat more merily then perhaps grauity requireth, I wish all, as in all drinkes, so in wine especially, to obserue a diet, for the age, the complexion, time of the yeare, quantitie, and euery circumstance.

[Page]There is also a dyet in sleepe, wee must not reake our selus vpō our beds of down, and snortso long:

Indomitum quod despumare falernum,

Perfiu [...].

Sufficit, & quinta àum lin [...]a [...] vmbra,

as would suffice vs to sleepe out our surfet, till hie nowne. Wee must not imitate Cornelius Agrippaes dormouse, of whomeDe glire. Tota mihi dormitur byems et pinguior illo Tempore sum quo nil me ni [...]i somnus a [...]t. hee reports that she should not beawoke, till being boylde in a leade, the heat caused her to wake out of her sleepe, hauing slept a whole winter. We must not sleepe with Salomons foole, who will neuer haue enough, till hee come to his long sleepe: rather must we take the Delphin to be our patterne, who dooth in sleeping alwayes moue from the vpper brim of the waters, to the bottome: like the Lion, which alway moues his taile in sleeping. Aristotle, as Marsus affirms, as others both Alexāder the great & also Iulian the Apostata, were wont to sleepe with a brazen ball in their fistes, their armes [...]tretcht out of bedde, vnder which there was plac'd a brazen vessell, to the end that whē through drowsines, they gan to fall a sleepe, the ball of brasle falling out of their handes on the same mettall [Page] the noyse might keepe them frō sleepe immoderately taken, which men of renown and fame doe so greately detest, as being an vtter enemy to all good exploites, and to the soule it selfe. The Poet▪ Iul. Scalliger thus speakes of sleepe, in the dispraise of it.

Promptas hebetat somniculosa vita mentes

Iul. Scal. lib prini [...] Epidorpidum.

Vivum sepelit namque hominem haec mortis imago.

Sleepe duls the sharpest conceite, this image of death buries a man quicke. How we ought to demeane our selues for sleep, what beds are most fitte to repose our lims vpon, what quantitie of repast wee must receiue, as also the inconuenience that redoundes vnto our bodies by immoderate sleepe; excellent is that Chapter of Clemens in the 2. of his Pedagog: First, heeClemens. 2. paedag. cap. 9 aduiseth vs to shunne [...], beds softer then sleepe it selfe, affirming, that it is daungerous and hurtfull to lie on beds of downe, our bodies for the softnes thereof [...], as falling and sinking downe into them, as into a vaste, gaping and hollow pit; these beds are so farre from helping concoction, that they enflame the natiue heate, and [Page] putrifie the nourishment. Againe for sleep it must not be a resolution of the body but a remission, and as he saith— [...] wee must so sleep that wee may easily be awaked, which may easily be effected if we doe not ouerballise our ▪ stomachs with superfluity, and too delitious viands.

The maner also of sleepe must be duly regarded, to sleepe rather open mouth'd thē shut, which is a great help against inter nall obstructions, which more ensweeteneth the breath, recreateth the spirits, com forteth the braine, and more cooleth the vehement heat of the heart. Sleeping on our backe, is very dangerous and vnholsome as all Physicions affirme, because it begetteth a superaboundance of bad humors, generates the stone, is the cause of a Lethargy in the backe part of the heade, procureth the running of the reines especially if a man lye hot, as vpon feathers, which greatly impaires mans strength, & affect him with a vitious kinde of soaking heate; it is also the meanes to bring the Ephialtes, which the vulgar sort tearme [...] Of the Ephialtes or the night▪ mare. the night-mare, or the riding of the witch▪ which is nothing else but a disease proceeding [Page] of grosse phleume in the orifice of the stomach, by long surfet, which sends vp could vapors to the hinder cels of the moistened braine, and there by his grosenesse hinders the passage of the spirits descending, which also causes him that is affected, to imagin hee sees something oppresse him and lie heauily vpon him, when indeed the fault is in his braine in the hinder part only, for if it were & had possession of the middle part, the fansie shoulde bee hindred frō imagining: which also seemes to bee tainted with darkesome fumes, because it formes and [...]aignes to it selfe diuers visions of things which haue no existence in verity, yet it is not altogether obscured: and it may bee proued specially to lodge in that part, I meane in the head, because of the want of motion in that part cheifly. This disease neuer takes any, but while they lie vpon their backe: There is an other diet for Venus: we must not spend our selues vpon common curtizans: wee must not be like Sparrowes, which as the Philosopher saies, goe to it eight times in an hower, nor like Pigeons, which twain are fained of the Poets to drawe the chariot of Cyth [...]raea, for their salacitie: [Page] but rather like the stockdoue who is called palumbes quoniam p [...]rcit lumbis, as contrariwise columba quippe colit lumbos, because she is a venerous bird, it were good to tread in Carn [...]ades his steps for chastity, & follow X [...] [...]crates example, who, as Frid. Milleman [...] reports was caused to lie with a curtezanVale [...]. Max. and Frid. Mille-man nus. all a night, for the triall of his chastity, whom the curtezan affirmed in the morning, non vt hominem sed vt stipitem propt [...]r dormisse, not to haue laide by her as a man but as a stocke.

For our exercise wherein a diet also is to be respected, it must neither be too vehement nor too remisse, adruborē non adsudorem, to he at not sweat: There be two other, the one of nutriment, the other of attire, which are in physick to be had in account, which for breuity I passe ouer, mallē enī as he saith in minim [...] peccare, quam non peccare in maxi [...].

But note here, that the first diet is not only in auoiding superfluity of meates and surfet of drincks, but also in eschewing such as are not obnoxious, and least agreable with our happy tēperate state: as for a cholericke man to abstaine from all salte, scorched drye meates, from mustard and such like things as will aggrauate his malignant [Page] humour, al hot drincks & enflaming wines: for a sanguine to refraine from all wines, because they engender superfluous blood, which without euacuation, will breed eyther the frenzie, the hemoroihds sputam sangui [...]s, dulnes of the braine, or any such disease: for Phlegmaticke men to auoide all thinne rhumaticke liquors, cold meat and slimy as fish and the like which may beget crudities in the ventricle, the Lethargie, Dropsies, Cathars, rhumes, and such like: for a melancholicke man in like maner, to abandon from himselfe all dry and heauy meates, which may bring an accrument vnto his sad humour, so a man may in time change and alter his bad complection into a better. Wee will therefore conclude that it is excellent for euery complection to obserue a diet, that thereby the soule, this heauenly created forme, seing it hath a sympathie with the body, may execute her functions freely, being not molested by this terrestriall mas [...]e, which otherwise will bee a burthen ready to surpresse the soule.

[Page]

Cap. 5. How man derogates from his excellency by surfet and of his vntimely death.

AS natures workemanship is not little in the greatest, soe it may bee great in the least thinges: there is not the abiectest nor smallest creature vnder the firmament, but would astonish and amaze the beholder, if he duly consider in it the diuine finger of the vniuersall nature: admirable are the works of art euen in le [...]er things: [...], little workes shew [...] forth great Artificers. The image of Alexander mounted vpon his courser, was so wonderfully portrayed out, that being no bigger thē mote wel be couered with the naileMart. Ilias et [...]riami regnis inimicus Vlisses. Multiplci paruter co [...]dita pel le [...]acent of a finger, hee seemed both to iercke the steede and to strike a terrour and an amazemēt into the beholder. The whole [...] ades of Homer were comprized into a compendious nutshell, as the Oratormētions, and Martiall in the second of his distichs▪ The Rhodes did c [...]rue out a ship, in euery point absolute, and yet so little that the wings of a flie might easily hide the whole [Page] ship Phydias merited great praise for his Scarabee, his Grashop, his Bee, of which, saith Iulian, euery one though it were framedIulian in an epistle to Georgius the bishop of Alexa [...]. dria▪ of brasse by nature, yet his art did add a life and soule vnto it. None of all these workes, though admirable in the eye of cunning it selfe, may enter into the lists of compare with the least liuing thing, much lesse with that heauenly worke of works, natures surquedry and pride, that little world, the true pattern of the diuine image man, who if hee could hold himselfe in that perfection of soule and temprature of body, in which he was framed and should by right preserue himselfe, excels all creatures of the inferiour orbs, from the highest vnto the lowest, yet by distempering his soule, and misdietting his body inordinatly by surfet & luxury, he far comes behind many of the greatest, which are more abstinent, and some of the lesse creatures, that are lesse continent. Who doth more excell in wisedom then he? who's more beau tified with the ornaments of nature? more adorn'd with the adiuments of art? indowed with a greater summe of wit? who can better presage of things to come by naturall causes? whoe hath a more filed iudgement? [Page] a soule more actiue, so furnisht with all the gifts of contemplation? whoe hath a deper infight of knowledg both for the creator and creature? whoe hath a body more sound and perfect? who can vse soe speciall meanes to prolong his daies in this our earthly Paradise? and yet we see that for all this excellency, and supereminence, through a distemperate life want of good aduice and circumspection by imbracing such things as proue his bane (yea sometimes in a brauery) hee abridges his owne daies, pulling downe vntimely death vpon his owne head: he neuer bends his study and endeauor to keepe his bodie in the same model and temper that it shold be in. Mans life saith Aristotle, is vpheld by two staffs: the one is [...] natiue heate, the other is, [...] radicall moisture: now if a man do not with all care seke to obserue an equall portion & mixture of them both, so to manage them that the one orecome not the other: the body is like an instrument of musicke, that, whē Aristotle in his book de lōgitudine et breui [...]ate vitae. it hath a discordancy in the strings, is wont to iarre, and yeelds no melodious & sweete harmony, to go vnto the Philosophers owne simile: our heate is like the flame of [Page] a burning lampe; the moisture like the fo [...]eson or O [...]le of the lampe, wherewith it continew [...]s burning. As in the lampe, if there bee not a symmetrie and a iust measure of the one with the other, they will in a short time, the one of them destroy the other. For if the heat be too vehemēt, and the oyle too little, the latter is speedily exhausted, and if the oyle be too aboundāt, & the heat too re misse, the fire is quickly suffocated: Euen so it fares with these two in the body of man, man must striue against his appetite with reason, to shunne such thinges as do not stand with reason, whatsoeuer will not keepe these in their equality of dominion must be auoided, vnlesse we will basely subiect our selues to fond desire, which is (as wee say) euer with child. To what end is reason placed in the head as in her tower, but that she may rule ouer the affections, which are situated farre vnder her: like Eolus, whom Virgil faineth to sit in a hie turret, holding the scepter, and appeasing the turbulent windes, which are subiect vnto him: thus Maro discribes him.

—celsa sedet Aeol [...]s arce,

[Page]cept [...] a tenens, mollitqu [...] animos, & tēperat iras.

We must especially bridle our vntamed appetite in all luxury & surfeit, which wil suddēly extinguish our natural flame & suck vp the natiue oile of our liuely lampe ere we be a ware & die long before the complet age of man, as many most excellent men we read of haue brought a violent death vpon them selues long beefore the lease of their life were expired, though not by that means: for death is of two sorts, either natural, or violēt. Violent as when by surfet, by [...], by sword, by any sudden accident a man either dies by his owne hand or by the hand of an other, this is that death wher of Homer speakes.

[...].

C [...]pit illum purpurea mors & violent a parca.

Hee dyed suddenly by one forceable stroke: so purple death is to bee vnderstoode, of Purpurea or Murex, the purple fish, who yeldes her purple-dying humor, being but once strucke, as they that be learned knowe, for this accidentary death instance mote be giuen of many.

[Page] A [...]acreon died, beeing choc't with a kornell of a ray sinne: Empedocles threw himselfe into Aetnaes flakes to ae [...]ernise his memorie: Euripides was deuourde by Thracian curres: Aeschilus was kild with a Tortisse shell, or as some write with a deske that fell vppon his head whiles he was writing: A [...]aximander was famisht to death by the Athenians: Heracl [...]us died of a dropsie beeing wrapt in oxen dung before the Sunne: Diogenes d [...]ed by eating raw Polypus: Lucretia [...]heathed her knife in her owne bowels, to renowne her chastity: Regulus that worthy Romane mirrour, rather then he wold ransōe his owne life by the death of many, suffered himselfe to be rould to death in a hogshed full of sharp nayles: Menāder was drownd in the Pyraean hauen, as Ouid in his Ibis witnesseth: Socrates was poysoned with chill cicuta: Homer staru'd himselfe for anger that he could not expound the riddle which the fishers did propound vnto him, when hee demaunded what they had got they answered.Plutarch.

[...]

What we haue taken we haue left behinde,

[Page]What's not taken, about vs thou maist find.

Eupolis the poet was drownd: &c. For a naturall death, euery man knowes: it is when by the course of nature a man is cō'd to the full periode of his age, so that with almost a miracle, a man can possibly liue no longer: as al those decrepits, whom Plautus calls silicernia, capularii, senes Acheruntic [...], all old men that dying are [...]ikned to apples that beeing mellow fall of their owne accord from the trees. Such a one as Numa Dionisius Halicarnassaeus lib. [...]. Antiq. Roma. So [...]brahā expirauit in canitie bona senio sa. tur. Genes. 25. 8. Pompilius was, the praedecessour of Tullius Hostilius in the king [...]ome, w [...]om Dionysius Halicarnassaeus hiely praising for his vertues, at length comming to speake of his death, sayes: but first, he liued long with perfect sense, neuer infortunate, and hee ended his dayes with an easie death, beeing withered away with eld: which end happens more late vnto the sanguine, then to any other complexion: and the soonest comes vpon a melancholicke constitution. Fe [...] die naturally, but wise men which knowe their tempers well, many dye violently by them selues like fooles which haue no insight into themselues: especially by this great fault of surfeite, partely by the ignorance [Page] of their owne state of complection, and partely these of their reason beeing blindfold by their lasciuious wantonesse, and luxurie, amid their greatest iollity.

For variety of meats, and dainty dishes are the nourses of great surfeite and many daungerous diseases: to the which, that speach of Lucian is sutable: where he saith that Goutes, Tislickes, Exulcerations of the Lungs, Dropsies, and such like which in rich men vsually are resident, are [...] Lucian in his Somniū or Gallus. Clemens. paedag. 2. cap. 1. the ofsprings of sūptuous bancquets: so also did Antiphanes the physician, say as we read in Clemens.

Surfeite is an ouer cloying of the stomach with meates or drinkes properly, which hinder the second concoction, and there fester and putrifie, corrupting the spirits, infecting the blood and other internall parts, to the great weakening and enfeebling of the body, and often to the separation of the soule: improperly of anger, Venus and the like: all which in a parode, imitating Virgil wee may set downe, but chiefely touching surfeite.

——a sedibus imis.

Vnà ardor, luxusque fl [...]nt, et crebra procellis

[Page]Dira Venus, moestos generant in corpore luctus:

Corporis insequitur tabes funesta, vaporum

I [...]on. allu▪ sum est ad verba Aristophan. [...]. Clemens paedago. 2. Cap. 2.

Nubes obienebrant subito sensūque [...]

Fumantis crapul [...] cerebro nox incubat atra:

* Intonuere exta, & crebris angoribus algent,

[...]nfaustamque guloso intentant ilia mortem.

Of all sinnes this gluttony and gourman dizing putrifieth and rotteth the body, & greatly disableth the soule: it is tearmed crapula of [...] and [...] of shaking the head, because it begets a resolution of the sinnewes by cold, bringing a palsey. Or for this, when nature is ouercharged & the stomach too full (as he saith in his Theatre du monde) all the braines are troubled in such sort that they cānot execute their functiōs as they ought. For as Isocra [...]es writes, theIsocrat to Demonicus mind of man being corrupted with excesse and surfet of wine, he is like vnto a chariot running without a coachman. This fault of luxury was in Sardanapalus whose belly was his God, and God his enemie: in Vitellius who had serued vnto him at one feast 2000. fishes and 7000. birdes: in Heliogabalus that centre of al dainties, who at one supper was serued with 600. ostriches in Maximianus who did eate euery day [Page] 40. pound of flesh, and drincke 5. gallons of wine. Concerning rauenous eaters, learned Athenaeus is aboundant and copious: this no doubt was in the priests of Babylon, who worshipped God Bell onely for God belly. Great was the abstinence, of Aurelianus the Emperor, who when he was sicke of any malady (as Fl. Vopiscus records) neuer called for any physicion, but alwaies cured and recouered himselfe by a sparing thinne diet: such temperance is to be vsed of all them that haue iudgement to expell and put to flight all discrasies and diseases whatsoeuer, least by not preuenting that in time which will ensue, we be so far spent that it is too late to seeke for helpe.Chaucer v. of Troilus.

But all too late comesth' electuary

Wh [...]n men the corse vnto the graue y carry.

Ecquid opas Cratero magnos promitter [...] mō [...]es, if thou wouldst giue whol mountaines for the physicions help, al's too late sithēce thou ar [...] past cure. Let iudgement and discretion therefore stay thy fond affections and lusts, let them be like the little fish Echi [...]eis or Remora, which will cause the mightiest Atalātado or highest ship to stad [Page] still vpon the surging waues: so thou mustEchin [...]look Oppian Pliny: Fracastor: A [...] li an: &c. it hath his name. [...] stay the great shippe of thy desire, in the Oceane of wordly pleasures, lest it going on thou make shipwracke of thy life and good name:

Whosoeuer prophesieth thus, foretelleth truth, yet he is accounted vain and too sharp vnto the Epicures of our age, as whosoeuer in any prophesie. So Euripides, or rather Tiresias in Euripid. his Phaenissae saith

[...]

The poet Persius is this prophet, that foretels of death and a suddaine end to them that are giuen to luxury and surfet.

Turgidus hic epulis atque albo ventre lauatur,

Gutture sulphureas lentè exhalente mephites:

Sed tremo [...] inter vina subit, calidumque triētal

Excut [...]t e manibus, dentes crep [...]ere retecti,

Vncta cadunt laxis tunc pulm e [...]taria labris:

Hinc tuba, candelae, tandemque beatulus al [...]o

Compostus lecto, crassisque litatus amomis, &c.

[Page]With surfets tympany he ginning swell

All wan eft lauers in Saint Buxtons well:

He breathing belketh out such sulphure aires,

As Sunne exhales from those Aegyptian mares.

Death's shuddring fit while quaffing he doth stōd

With chilnes smites the boule out of his hond:

Grinning with all▪discouered teeth he dies,

And vomits vp his oily crudities.

Hence i'st the solemne dolefull cornet cals,

And dimmer tapers burne at funeralls:

At length his vehement malady being calmed,

In's hollow tombe with spice he [...]ies e [...]balmed.

But Cassandra may prophesie of the sacking of the citty and bid the Troianes be warned of the woddē horse, as Tryphiodorus speakes [...], and some will step out as Priame did too fond in that, yea not a few, and will cry with him frustra nobis vatic [...]aris, tut, thou art a false prophet.

[...].

Wilst neuer bee tired, or cured of this phrenetical disease, but was not (thou Epicure) the Cyclops, his eye put out as Telemus Eurimid: prophesied vnto him, yet the Cyclops, as the poet witnesseth, laught him to [Page] scorne.

Risit, & O vatum stolidissime, falleris, inquit.

He laught' in's slee [...]e and said to Telemus,

Fondling thou errest, thus in telling vs.

Thou that art wise, Telemus speakes to thee that being fore-warnd, thou maist bee fore▪arind: by physicking thy selfe thou maist liue with the fewest, and outliue the most. Be not addicted to this foule vice of Gastrimargisme and belly chear, like Smyn derides who when he rid a suiter to Clysthenes his daughter caried with him a thousand cooks, as many fowlers, and so many fishers, saith AElian. although Athen [...]us sayAthenaeus vi Deipnosop [...]ist. hee caried with him but a hundred of all. This Smy [...]derida was so giuen to meate; wine and sleepe, that hee bragd hee had not seene the Sunne either rising or setting in twenty yeares: (the same author reportes) whom it is to bee meruailed how he in that distemper could liue out twenty. We must not like the Parasite, make our stomachs, caemeterium ciborum, lest we make our bodies sepulchr [...] animarum. Dum os delectatur co [...]dimentis, anima ne [...]atur comedentis▪ Gregory out [Page] of Ludolphus.

Too much doth blunt the edge of the sharpest wit, dazell, yea, cleare extinguish the bright and cleare beames of the vnderstanding, as Theopompus in the fift of his Phil. reports, yea it doth so fetter & captiuatAthenaeus▪ in the 4. of his Deipno. [...]. the soule in the darkesom prison of discontentednes [...]e, that it neuer can enioy any pure aire to refresh itselfe, till it by constraint be enforced to breake out of this ruinous jayle, the distēpered & ill affected bodie: which will in a moment come to passe, if a man be inclined to luxury the suddaine shortner of the daies. I would wish that euery one that hath wisedome could vse abstinence as well as they know it: but it is to bee feared that they that neuer haue attained to that pitch of wisdome, vse abstinence more, though they know it lesse.

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Cap. 6. Of Temperaments.

We must know that all naturall bodies haue their composition of the mixture of the elemntes, fire, ayre, water, earth: now are they either equally poisd according to their waight, in their combinatiō, as iust so much of one element, as there is of another, throughout the quaternio or whole number: as imagin a duplū, quadruplū or decuplū of earth, so much iust of fire, as much of ayre, and the like quantity of water and no more th [...] they bee truly ballanced one againe another in our vnderstanding: when there are as many degrees of heat as of could, of drinesse as of moisture, or they bee distemperate or vnequall, yet measured by worthinesse, where one hath dominion ouer another: as in beasts that liue vpon the center, earth and water do domineere: in fowles commonly aire and fire are predominant, Or thus, where the true qualities are inherent [Page] and rightly giuen vnto their proper subiects: as in the heart well tempered heat consists: moisture rules in the braine hauing his true temper: cold in the fatte: drines in the bones. The first is tearmed [...] or Temperamētum ad pondus, which is found in none, though they haue neuer so excellent and surpassing a temperature: onely imaginary: yet in some sort held to be extāt by Fernelius. The other is called Temperamentum ad iustitiam, which distributes euery thing it owne, according to the equity of parts. Of the predominion of any element, or rather the qualities of the element, the complection hath his peculiar denomination: as if the element of fire be chieftaine, the body is said to be cholericke: if ayre beare rule; to be sanguine: if water bee in his vigour, the body is said to be phlegmaticke: if earth haue his dominion, to be melancholicke. For choler is hot and dry; blood hotte and moist; water cold and moist: earth could and drie. These four complections, are compared to the 4. elemēts: secondly to the four planets Mars, Iupiter, Saturne, Luna. thē to the four winds: then to the four seasons of the yeare: fiftly vnto the twelue Zodiacall signes, in thē [Page] four triplicities: lastly to the foure ages of man: all which are here deciphered and limmed out in their proper orbes.

[figure]

[Page]But to square my wordes according to the vulgar eye, there be nine temperatures are blazond out among the phisicions: 4. simple according to the foure first qualities heat, drines, moi [...]ture, coldnes; the other 4. be compound, as hot and drie, hot & moist cold and moist &c. the contrarieties bee in no body according to their eminencie and valour, but onely comparatiuely: as hot and cold is agreeable to no nature, according to their predominancies, drie & moist competent to none, not in the height of their degrees: for as in political affairs, one kingdome or seat cannot brooke 2. Monarchs or compeers, as Lucan saith Omnisque potestas ‘Impatiens consortis erit &c.’

No Potērate admits an equal: yea through ciuil garboils and mutinies, their eger contention ruinates and often dissolues the sinewes of the common weale. So happens it in the naturall body, where the qualities are equaliz'd in strength, there must needs be action and reaction, a bustling and strug ling together so long till there be a conquest of the one, which no doubts wil soon di [...]euer the partes and rend a sunder the whole compound: yet these twaine may, (I meane drines and moisture, or cold and [Page] hot) bee competent to the same subiect by comparing them with others in other subiects, as man is both hot and cold, hot in re gard of such bodies as are of a colde constitution, as in regard of the femall sex which abounds with moisture: hotte in compare with an Asse, which is reported among the Philosophers to be of an exceeding colde constitution, which may euidently appear by his slow pace, by shoes made of his skin by that chill water of th' Arcadian M [...]acris which for the extreame coldnes cannot be contained in any vessell, saue the hoofe of an Asse. Man is hot, in comparing him with the Salamander, the Torpedo, and the Pirausta. Could in respect of the Lion, the Struthio-camell or O Estridge, which will con coctiron, or Leather, the Sparrow, Cock, Pig [...] on, and Dog: and these are rather to be tearmed distemperaments.

The ninth and the last is called temperamentum ad pondus, of which wee spake erst, not in any but onely in conceit. But how euery temperature is good or bad, & how their mixtures implye an excellent and healthfull or a diseased estate: as if in mans body the chiefe valour of fire concur with the tenuity of water: or the grossest substance [Page] of water with the purest tenuity of fire be conioind: or the strength and quintescence of sire, with the thickest part of humour ruling in one: or the purest and ra rest parts of fire, with the thinnest and clea rest substance of water: what temperature all these import, looke Hippoc. in his booke de victus ratione. lib. 1. sect: 4. A temper also as it is vsually taken, may be referred to the equall proportion of radicall heate to inbred moisture, when they are like aegeo powerfull, to the excellency and purity of the blood, to the subtilty of the spirits, to asupple, soft and tender skin, to mollified and smooth haires, to the amiable and beautifull feature, to affability and gratious deliuery of speech, to a buxome, pliable & refined wit, to a wise moderation of anger, to the vassalizing of the rebellious affections: all which when we see to iumpe together in one, or the most of them, we say that man, or that body hath a most happy tēper a rare composition, a sweet complection.

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Cap. 7. Of diuersities of wit: and most according to tempers.

PLinie makes mention of king Pirrhus, that he had a little pretiousSo Ru [...]us reports. lib. 2. xvi. so Petrarch and Cardane. pearle of diuers resplē dent coulors, commonly tearmed the Achates of our skilfull Lapidaries. Wherin were admirably coadunated the nine Helicanian Ladies, and Apollo holding his golden harpe. Our soul [...] that princely 'Pirrhus or [...], that ign [...] us vigor, quintessence or vertue of heauens fire, as the poet cals it, hath this rate gemme as an Achates dayly to consort with it: wherein is not only a boure for the Muses to disport themselues in, but also a harbor for wise Apollo to lodge in to wit ou [...] acute, pleasant and actiue wit, which can apparrell it selfe with more variable coulours, and sute it selfe with more resemblances then either the Camelion or Polypus: and like an industrious Bee, taking her flight in to the fragrant fieldes of Minerua, can gather such honnisuckle from the sweete [...] [Page] flowers, as may feast with delicious dainties the hungry eares of the attentiue auditours: if they deigne but to let their eares (as once diuine Platoes mouth was) bee the hiues or celles wherein to store vp their honny combes: if they will suffer them to be as vessels ready to receiue and intertaine the Nectar-flowing words of wit. It is caled among the Grecians [...], & hethat's [...]ossessed of it, is tearmed [...], excelling [...]n actiue nature, acute, hauing a quicke in [...]ight into a thing, a liuely cōceit of a thing: [...]hat can inuent with ease such witty pol [...]cies, quirks and stratagems, as hee that is [...]ot of so sharpe a wit, would euē admire, ne euer can compasse. It hath his sate in intel [...]ctu agente, in the actiue vnderstanding, which doth offer the species and idaeas of ob [...]ects to the passiue, there to bee discerned & iudged of according to their real essēce. As diuers and the most are indowed with wits; so most wits are diuers in nature. Ther [...]s a Simian or apish wit, an Arcad [...]an wit, aNine kind [...] of wits V [...] all at this day. [...] wit: a Scurril wit: an Aenigmatical wit, [...]n Obscene wit, an Autolican or embezel'd wit: a Chance medlay wit, and lastly there is [...]smirke, quick & dextericall wit. They that [...]aue the first, do onely imitate, & do apishly [Page] counterfeit and resemble a poet, or an oratour, or any man of excellence in any thing, yet can they neuer climbe vp to the top of poetry whither his wit saspired whō they do imitate, and as it was once said, that it is impossible to get to the top of Pythagras his letter, without Craesus golden ladder, intimating that, Haud facile em ergunt

quorum virtutibus obstat, res angusta domi:

No Eagle proues he but a silly Wren,

That soares without an Angels golden pen.

that learnnig cannot climbe without golden steps: so they can neuer attaine to his hie straine with their base leaden inuentions, but are constrained either foolishly to go on vnto the Catastrophe or with disgrace and infamie (being tired in the race of their owne fansies) to make a full period, long before the Catastrophe: Thus Accius Labeo was an apish imitatou: [...] Homer. An Arcadi [...] an wit is meant of hi [...]: cum sono intempesti [...]o rudit a sellus, when a man imagins hee singes harmoniously, o [...] the nightingales sugred notes, or like [...]e of Camus swans, when in deed he prou [...] no swan but rather a silly swaine.

‘Ledaos st [...]epit anser vt inter olores.’

He is li [...]e aloud sack but intermedled [Page] with still musicke: he brayes like an Arcadian asse, he is conceited without reason, as he was who among the deuout offringes toPlutarch de solertia a [...]imalium. the Aegiptiā Ox, Apis or Serapis, offered vp a great bottell of hay. Or when a man is witty like Plutarchs Asse, not considering the infortunate euēt his wit will haue. Plutarch tels of a pretty iest: An asse chanc't to passe through a fresh riuer ladened with salt, which being deep, the water melted much of the salt in the sacks, which the asse perceiuing that he was much lightned of his burden, the next time he came that way the water not b [...]eing so hie the Asse wittily couebt down to ease himselfe of his waight whose pollicie the maister espying afterward reueng'd on this manner, ladening the Asse with wool and sponges, who according to his wont did dip the sacks as before in the water, but when he came out, he felt his loade far more aggrauated, in so much it made him grone againe wherefore euer after he was wary lest his packe mote touch the water neuer so little. This is also called mother wit, or foolish wit, or no wit, like that which was in a certain cuntry gē tleman, whom the Queene of Arabia meeting, and knowing him to bee a man of no [Page] great wisedome, demaunded of him when his wife should be brought in bed: who answered, euen when your highnes shal com mand. Such a wit was in the rustick of whō we read in the courtier, that he meeting a heard of goates by the way, and espyingCler. de Aulico. one of them among the rest to haue a longer beard then any of the rest, he wondring at the grauitie of the goate, as presently amazd he stood stock still, and cryed, lo sirs me thinkes this goat is as wonderfull like S. Christopher as euer I saw. A Roscian wit is3 onely in gesture, when one can farre more wittily expresse a thing by dumb externall action, then by a liuely internall inuention more by gestures then ieasts. This was in that pantomimicall Roscius who could varie a thing more by gesture, then either Tully could by phrase, or he by his witty speeches.

The fourth wit belongs to Pantal [...]bus: 4 Streps [...]ades in Aristophan. his Nube [...]. a Scur [...]ile wit, that ieasts vpon any, howsoeuer, when and wheresoeuer, contrary to al vrbanitie: as he that iested illiberally vpo [...] the Chorus of goddesses in Aristophan. It was in Sextus Naeuius, whom Tully mentions it was also in Philippus the iester who said in Zenophon, because laughter is out of request [Page] my art goes a begging [...]:Xenoph. i [...] his conuiuium. I can bee as soone immortall as speake in earnest. An Aenigmaticall wit is when one5 striues to speake obscurely, and yet all the light of his owne reason, or others cannot illuminate the darke sense: yet oftentimes by a witty apprehension it may rellish a filed and smooth wit. This was in Tectius C [...] ballus who comming into Ciceroes schoole, Seneca being then also present, he on a sudden brake out into those speeches. Si thrax ego esse [...] Fusius essem, Si Pantomimus Bathillus si equus Menason: to which Seneca answered the foole according to his folly in these6. wordes: Si cloaca esses, magnus esses. The Obscene wit is when a man vses too broade a ieast, when his conceit rellishes not in a chast eare: as oftentimes Martiall who said nolo castrars meos libellos: as Ausonius, Petronius, Catullus and Persius in one place especially, though wisely interpreted of the learned, in them who thinke their wit and poetrie neuer sounds well till this, cum carmiua lumbum intrant &c. which is to be ac counted the canker-worme of true wit, & altogether reprooueable in any poet, though his ieast be neuer so witty.

[Page]Yet Catullus speakes in the apologie of this fault.

Nam castum esse decet

Pium poetam ipsum,

Versiculos eius nil necesse est qui tun [...] &c.

For it behooues a poet himselfe to bee vertuous and chaste, for his verses it is not so greatly materiall. So in another place.

‘Lasciua est nobis pagina, vita proba.’

What if my page be lasciuious, so that my life bee not scandalous? Yet Scalliger wisely replies against this fonder speach, saying.

Audens in honestis numeris fundere versus,

Musisque pudicis quasi maculas dare impudicas

Iulius Scall. lib. quinto Epidorpidum.

Lasciua quasi pagina sit, vita probata:

Impurus, erit. quod habet vas, fundere sueuit.

Which is, hee that presumes with his alldaring quill to put forth lewde pamphlets, amorous loue songs, and wanton elegies, to set vp a venerious schoole: bluring and staining the pure vnspotted name of the muses with his impure blemishes of art: let him sing a foole a masse, and tell me that his life is vntainted, though his lines bee lecherous: hee is a meere pandar, a baud to all villany: the vessell beein vented and broch't, tels the taste what liquor [Page] islueth from it. But not withstanding I con [...]esse a pure, chast, and vndesiled mind is not allured to sinne, by these pleasing Poeticall baites▪ they are no incentiues vnto him, any wise to make him bee intangled in the nets of inueigling venery, a stable minde can not bee moued or shaken with these blasts of v [...]nity it may say with Lipsius concerning Petronius Arbiter. Ioci e [...]us me delectant, vrbanitas capit, caetera nec in a [...]mo nec in moribus meis maiorem relinquun: labem, quam solet in flumine vestigium cymba. His liue ly conceit reuiues my droup [...]ng heart, his pleasant faire speach rauishes & inchaunts me, for his ribaldry it leaues no more impression in my memory, then a floating barge is wont to leaue behinde in the streame. These are the wordes so neare as I can call them to minde, but for most natures they are prone to vice, and like the Camaeleō ready to take a coulour of euery subiect they are resident on. An autolican wit is in our thread-bare humorous eauialeroes, who like chap fallen hackneies [...]eed at others rack and manger: neuer ouer glutting their mindes with the heauenlie Ambrosia of speculation whose braines are the very broakers shoppes of [Page] al ragged inuentions: or rather their heads bee the blockhouses of all cast and outcast peeces of poetrie: these bee your pickhatch courtesan wits, that merit (as one ieasts vpon them) after their decease to be carted in Charles waine: they bee tearmed not laureat but poets loreat that are worthy to bee ijrkt with the lashes of the wittiest Epigrammatists. These are they that like r [...]ing dunkirkes or robbing pyrats sally vp and downe i'the printers ocean, wa [...]ted too and fro with the inconstant winde of an idle light braine: who, (i [...] any new work that is lately come out of presse, as a barke vnder saile fraughted with any rich marchandise appeare vnto them) do [...] play vpon it e [...]t with their siluer peeces, board it incontinently, ransacke it of euery rich sentence, cull out all the witty speeches they can finde appropriating them to their own vse: to whome for their wit wee will giue such an applause, as once Homer did vnto Autolycus who praised him hilie.Homer in his viii.

— [...].

For cunning the euery, and for setting a iolly acute accent vpon an oath. The next is a Chance-medlay witte, which is in [Page] him that vtters a conceit now and then vt Elephantes pariunt, and when hee is deliuered of it, as of a faire youngling or rather a fowle fondling, that broke out of the meaninges of his braine, and snarled in peeces his pia mater like a viperous brood, hee laughes and kincks like Chrysippus when he saw an asse eat figs: and sits vpon hote cockles till it bec blaz'd abroade, and withall intreats his neighbours to make bonefires for his good hap, and causes all the bels of the parish to ring forth the peale of his owne fame, while their eares doc chime and tingle, for very anger that heare him, and thē. The last kinde of wit is in the purest tempered body of all that rich veine that is mixed with true learning, whereof Horace speakes.

—Ego nec studium sine diuite vena

Nec rude quid prosit video ingenium, alterius sic

Altera poscit [...]pem et coniurat amicé.

It is that will wherein the nine sisters of Parnassus doe inhabit the pure quintessence of wit indeede, that keepes a comely decorum in obseruing the time, the place, the matter subiect, the obiect, & euery singular circumstance, it is like Aristotles [Page] [...] which he defines to be [...]: sudden as a flash of lightning to dazel the eyes of a wished obiect, & yet premeditating in matters of moment, wherein grauity and sagenesis to bee respected: this is a true wit euer pistol proof hauing a priuy coate of pollicy and subtilty to shend it from all the intended stabadoes of any a cute obiactionist, it neuer wants variety in canuasing any subiect: yea the more it vtters the more by far is suppeditated vnto it, t'is like the vine which the oftner it is pruned, the more clusters of sweete grapes it will euer affoorde: t'is like the seauen mouthed Nilus, which, the faster it flowes in the channell, the faster still it springes from the head. I confesse this wit may bee glutted too much with too much of any obiect, and sooner with an irksome obiect, as the Philosopher saith, any surpassing obiect depraues the sense so it may bee spoken of wit: the nose may be ouercloyd with the fragranst flow ers in Alcinous his garden, though it smell neuer so exactly: and more with smels hard by port Aesquiline: the sight may surfet on faire Nireus, & quicklier with fowle Thersites: the appetite may bee cloyed [Page] with beautifull Lais who was all face, and more with Mopsa who was all lips, this pure wit may surfet on Ambrosia it selfe & sooner on catsmeat and dogsmeat, and though it be like vnto Nilus, as the mouths of Nilus so it also may be damd vp, especial ly with some grose terrestrial matter: and though it doe much resemble the vine, as the vine may bee pruned too oft, so it also may be dulled with too much contemplation, this wit disdaines being so great that any the greatest thinges should empire ouerit, flowing Nasoes wit, no doubt, was more then coosen germans to this: who saide,

Ingenio namqueipse meo valeo vigeoque

Caesar in hoc potuit iuris habere nihil.

A Demigod's my heauens-aspiring wit:

Caeser being humane, but could not bannish it.

The like hie straine of wit was in Luciane, and Iuliane, whose very image are to be had in hie repute, for their ingeniosity, but to be spurnd at for their grand impiety: and in many moe, whose workes are without compare, and who doe worthily [Page] merit for this if for nothing else, to be canoniz'd in the registers of succeeding times, yea to be characteriz'd and engrauen in the goldē tablets of our memories. Pericles who was called the spring head of wit, the torrent eloquence, the Syren of Greece was indowed with this speciall gift: he had a copious and an aboundant facultie by reason of this, in his deliuery. Of whom Iulian, (whom I cannot too often mention,) in a certaine epistle to Proaeresius, speaking to him thus, saies I doo salute thee O Proaeresius, [...] man I must needs confesse so plentifull in speach [...], like to the ouerflowing flouds of Nylus watering the Aegyptian fields; Pericli omnino similem eloquentia, nisi quod Graeciam non permisceas; altogether to be compared vnto Pericles for thy admirable eloquence, onely this excepted, that thou canst not with thy flowing tounge set all Greece on an vprore. So Angelus Poli tianus in his Miscella: hath an excellent speach of Pericles, in his praise, out of Eupolis his Comoedie which is intitled [...] or Tribus.

[...]

[Page] [...] &c:

Angelus Politianus in his first century Miscellan. cap. xci

The Goddesse of eloquence and perswasion was the portresse of his mouth, or fat in all pomp vpon his lips as on her royall throne: he among all the rout of cunning Rhetoricians, did let the auditors blood in the right veine, his wordes did moue an after passion, saith he, in them. Many besides had these excellent surpassing veines, of whom we may reade, if we peruse the histories, and other writings of famous men. This wit is euer a consort with iudgement; yet often I confesse the judgement is depraued in wit: for wee must know, though verum and falsum, bee the obiectes of vnderstanding, euery thing is not discerned or vnderstood according to these two, as they are properly either verum or falsum: for the agent vnderstanding, conueighing the species of any thing, (as imagine of any subtile stratageme) vnto the passiue, the passiue doth not alway judge of it accordingly: for if they seeme good and true at first view; yet after wee haue demurd vpon them any space of time, they are found neither true nor good, but altogether crude & imperfect [Page] For my censure of wit without judgmēt, it is like a flowing eddy, or hie spring tide without banckes to limitte the water. These wits are such as Lipsius saieth in his politicks, (as I remember) are the downfal and communion of a well ordered commō weale, He saith that these who are, [...] slow and of a dull wit, do administer a com mon wealth far more wisely, then they which are of a sharper conceit: his reason is in a gradation: These great wits are ignea of a fiery nature, fiery things are euer actiue in motion: motion brings in innouation, and innouation is the ruine of a kingdome. This is his sense, though I cā not exactly remember the very words: but that which I first aimed at, will I now speake: by the excellency of the wit is cō monly shadowed out the purenes of the temperature, for wher there is a good wit there is vsually, [...] the sense of feeling most exact, a soft temperate flesh, which indicate also an aboundance of spirits not turbulent and drossy, but pure and refined, which also do euer insinuate no leaden, but a golden temperature, these two are ordinarily inseparable complections: And because the spirits, both in regard of [Page] their copiousnesse and subtilty doe make a sweete harmony of the soule & body, and are the notes of a rare wit and a good crasis, we mean now to treat of thē succinctly.

Cap. 8. Of the Spirits.

THe poets Arachne doth neuer weaue her entangling webbe neare the Cypresse tree: the Em bleame is well knowne of the Scarabee, that liues in noisome excrements, but dies in the middle of Venus rose: so the Owle shuns the splendent rayes of Phoebu [...], delighting more in the darke some night: the worst we see do euer affect the worst: our groueling base affections, our dull conceits, blind-folded ignorance, our aguish iudgements timorous cowardize: slownesse and dulnes in contemplation, our inhability of inuention, and whatsoeuer grand capitall fomen to [Page] reason there bee, doo neuer take vp their lodgings in any beautious Inne, I mean in a body happely attempered, where the spirits are subtile and of a pure constitution; but haue their mansion in a smoky tenament, or some baser cottage, that is, in a polluted, sickely and corrupted body which is both plethoricū, pneumapht hiricum, & ca [...]ochymicum, wher there is a fulnesse & repletion of infected and malignant humours, where the subtile spirits be not only tainted but euen corrupted with puddle humours, with grosser fuming vapours, whose pitchy company, the cleare chrystalline and rarified spirits can in no wise brooke, as being disturbers of their noblest actions. These spirits the more attenuated and purified they be, the more that coelestiall particle of heauens flame, our reason, that immoueable pole-star by the which wee ought to direct the wandring course of all our affections, yea far more it doth beare dominion, and shewe forth her noble and surmounting excellency in this masse of ours. The more aboundant they are, all our internall gifts are more inhaunced & florish the more: where the spirits are appareled with their [Page] owne nature, and not attired or rather tired by any extraordinary ill means, which will neuer be accordant to their seemely decency, the soule of man is, as it were, in a [...]hessali'n Tempe of delight, which groue for faire florishing meades, for the pleasant shade of bushy P [...]nes, for pirhling brooks & gliding streams of [...]olsom water, for a sweete odoriferous ayre, for the melodious harmony and chi [...]ping of vocall birds, for the fragrancy of medicinable flowers and hearbs, for all pleasures that mo [...]e feast & delight the senses and draw the very soule into an admiration of the place, of all other did surpasseAE [...]ian. as the Topographer makes mention. But now wee meane to relate of the diuersity of spirits both in a generall and speciall acceptation, [...]. A spirit is taken for our breath in respiration as Galen saies, first prognostic. if saith he far from treatable,Ludouicus oe [...]ius 2. li [...] ▪ 3 cap. 3. An [...]q. lect [...]. it implies a paine and an inflamation about the disaphragma. Tis often among the poets taken for wind, among the philosophers for an abstract forme, pro Damone vel bono vel malo: it is vsed for a sauour, and for lofty courage: in none of these senses we are to take it in this place. [Page] But for a subtile pure aery substance in the body of man, and thus it may be defined.

Spiritus est subtilessima, aeria, dilucidaque substantia ex tenuissima parte sanguims producta, cuiu [...] adminiculo proprios valeat anima producere actus. A spirit is a most subtile, aery and lightsome substance, generated of the purest part of bloud, whereby the soule can easily performe her functions in the naturall body. They haue their originall and ofspring from the heart, not from the braine as some hold. For they being so pure, and elaborate into the nature of aire, cannot bee generated in the braine, beeing by nature cold, where nothing is product but that which is very vaporous. Againe cerebrum est exang [...]e: the braine is bloodless, as it is euident by Anatomy, neither hath it any veines to make a conueiance for that humour: therfore it is most probable that where their is the intensest heate to extract these spirits from the blood, and to rarifie them, conuerting them into an aery substance that from thence they should haue their efficient cause: for the spirits in speciall, they be of three sorts, vital, natural and animall: [Page] vital in the heart, naturall in the liuer, animal in the braine. Vital, because they1 giue power of motion & pulsion vnto the arteries: which motion any liuing creature hath, so long as it hath a being, and that being extinct, the life is also extinct. 2. Naturall in the liuer, in that they yeelde2. hability of executing such actiōs as chiefly concerne, not [...] but [...], as nutriciō and the generation of the like. 3. Animall3 in the braine, and though the spirits proceed from the heart, yet are they diffused through the whol body in the arteries and veines, and there in the braine they are termed animale, because they impart a faculty to the nerues of sence, and real motion, which are pec [...]liar to euery liuing creature. The conduits of the spirits are the arteries and veins: the arteries carry much spirits & little blood▪ & the veines much blood and little spirit, yet are each of them the receptacle of both. For the cherishing and stirring vppe of the spirits these things ensewing are greatly auailable. First an illuminated pure aire, purged from all grosser qualities, secondly a choice of fragrant smels, thirdly musicall harmony and meriment, as Ludouicus Cael. [Page] Rodig▪ doth write: a necessary fourth may be annexed, that is nutriment, for it rouses vppe and lightens the spirits, therfore the philosopher in his problems saith that homo pransus multo leuior est & agili [...]r jeiuno: after meat a man is farre more light, and nimble then whiles he is fasting: so a mery pleasant man is more light the [...] one that is sad, and a man that is dead it farre heauier then one aliue. There be [...] other thing; also very cōmodious as inte [...] mission of meditation, a due regard of motion that it be neither too vehement, and so consume, or too slacke, and so corrupt the spirits: now mean we to speake in order of the complections.

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Cap. IX, Of a cholerick complection.

CHoler is tearmed of the greeke word [...] of the Latins bilis, it is not onely taken for the humour but somtimes for anger, as i [...] Th [...] ocritus

[...]

Bitter anger appeard in his face, or in his nostrilles. So the latin word is as much as anger. Plaut▪ fames & mora bil [...]m in nasum cō ciunt: for anger first appeares in the face or nose therefore the Hebrues haue the same word for ira and nasus, that is aph [...] which is agreeable to that of Theocr. afore mentioned, and that of Persius. Persius. sat. 5.

Ira cadit naso, rugosaque sanna.

So we say in our english prouerb when a man is teasty and anger wrinckles his nose such a man takes pepper in the nose, but yel low choler is an humour, contained in the hollow inferiour part of the liuer which place is called [...] of Galen whose forme is long and somewhat round ending with a co [...]us, hard by the stem of the venaca [Page] ua which strikes through the liuer from whence all the veines are deriued through the whole body: it takes two slender veins from that stem, which makes this probable that the choler may infect the blood and cause the morbus ictericus or iaundise to disperse it selfe ouer all the parts of the body▪ there is a double procession or way of choler into the duodenum & intrals downward, or into the ventricle vpward, the euacuation is easy in the former, but difficult, in the latter. If the lower passage be damind vp with the thick sedimentes of grosse choler, as oftentimes it commeth to passe, then it as cendes into the ventricle & there procures excretion, hinders the concoctiō, euer corrupts some part of the nutriment▪ (without a long fast) and takes away the stomacke, yet others thinke that choler is generated in the ventricle also, that it is also a vessell apt to receiue it. This humour infectes the veines, stirs vp sudden anger, generates a consumption with his heat, shortens the life by drying vp the radical moisture. Aristotle & after him Plinie with many mo do af firm that those mē which want the vesicle of choler are both strong and couragious and liue long. Yet Vesalius sayth (although [Page] he imagins that there may be some conueianceVesalius. lib. 5. cap 8. de corporis humani fabrica. of choler from the liuer into the duodenum, so that it do not before gather into a vesicle) he could finde by experience none such hitherto. Many things there be which cause this maladious humour to accrue to such a measure that it will bee [...] an incurable thing, among which we wil note some. All fa [...] of meates sayth Galen, & suchGal. in lib. Hippoc. de vict. tat. in morb [...] ▪ [...] cutis. com. 4. sect. 102. as are burnt are both hard to concoct hauing no sweet in y [...]e, & do greatly increase the cholericke humour for the acrimony which is in them. All kinde of Olerae or salt meats, are not onely ill for this complection but almost for all▪ as all the phisa [...]ions do affirme: and Athenaeus to this purpose saith [...] &c. al kind of potherbsAthenaeus. lib. 3. Deipnos. & brinish-natur'd meats are obnoxious to the stomack, being of a gnawing, nipping & purching quality. Again dulce vini [...] non est [...] picrocholis, sweet wine is not wholsom [...]or cholericke complections, as Hippocrates [...]itnesses. They are called picrocholi, who [...]aue a redundance of yellow bitter choler: Antinous no doubt did partly for this dis [...]wade Vlisses from drinking sweet wine:— [...]:Odyss 3.

[...]t howsoeuer, this sweet wine doth not [Page] only [...] and [...] as the same H [...] mer speaks Iliad. [...] as also Athen [...]s notes lib. 1. Deipno, but also is a great generator of choler: (yea all sweet meates are nurses of this humor, honny especially is cholerick:) for sweete wines this is Galens reason: first in that much calidity doth make bitter these sweet humors, & againe because such wines be vsually thicke, neither can they speedily passe by the Ouretêres into the bladder: whereby it coms to passe that they do not clense choler in their passage, but ratherGalen in the booke afore mentioned. cō. 3. sect. 2 Gal. lib. 1. de sanitate tuenda. Gal lib. 7. 6 therapeut. method. increase the power of it, such wines be Theraeum, Scybelites: much sweet, thick, and black, as Galen calls them. Againe too violent and much motion is not good for this complection: as Galen also saith, much eating is also dangerfull for this humour. Then all thinges that do drie vp the moisture in the body, as watching and care &c. vigilantia maximé exiccat corpus saith Galen. So doth care euen consume and burne the body: cura therefore it is called quasi cor vs rens

To these I may associate & ioyn our adulte [...] rate Nic [...]tian or Tobacco, so called of the K [...]. sir Nicot that first broght it ouer, which is [Page] the spirits Incubus that begets many vgly and deformed phantasies in the braine, which being also hot and drie in the second extenuates and makes meager the body extraordinarily, whereof it may bee expected that I at this instāt so wel occasioned shold write something, and sure not impertinent to the subiect we haue now in hand. This then in briefe I will relate concerning it. Of it owne nature not sophisticate, it cannot bee but a soueraigne leafe as Monardis sayth, especially for externall maladious vlcers: and so in his simple it is for cacochymicall bodies and for the consumption of the lungs, and T [...]ssick if it be mixed with Coltes foot dryed, as it hath beene often experienced: But as it is intoxicated and tainted with bad admixture, I must answer as ourParacel. learned Paracelsian did, of whom my selfe did demaund whether a man might take it without impeachmēt to his health, who re plied as it is vsed it must needs be very pernicious in regard of the immoderate & too ordinary whiffe, especially in respect of the taint it receiues by composition: for sayth he, I grant it will euacuate the stomack and purge the head for the present of many feculent and noisome humors, but after by [Page] his attractiue virtue it proueth Caecias humorum leauing two ponds of water (as hee tearmed them) behinde it which are conuer ted into choler, one in the ventricle, another in the braine which accords with that of Gerard their herbalist in his 2. book of plants, cap. 63 of Tobacco or Hēbane, of Peru & Trinidada, for he affirmeth that it doth indeedGerard in his 2. booke of Plants. cap. 63. euacuate & ease one day, but the next it doth generate a greater flow of humors; euen as a well (saith hee) yeeldes not such store of water as when it is most drawne and emptyed. Againe it is very obnoxious of al to a spare and extenuated body, by reason of setting open the pores into which cold doth enter and we know as Tully saies lib. xvi. epist. 403. citing the Poet cuius singuli versus sunt illi singula testimonia, euery of whose particular verses is to him axiomatical as he saies. [...]. that is, colde is a bane and deadly enemy to a thin and spare body. And since that phisicke is not to be vsed as a continual alimēt, but as an adiument of drooping nature at an extremity, and beside that seeing euery nasty and base Tygellus vses the pipe, as infants their red coralls, euer in their mouths and many besides of more note and esteeme [Page] take it more for wantonnes then want, as Gerard speakes, I could with that our generous spirits would pretermit the too vsuall, not omit the phisic all drinking of it. I wold entreat more copiously of it, but that many others, chiefly Gerard and Monardis in his booke intituled the ioyfull newes out of the new found worlde or west Indies which Frampton translated, haue eased mee of that labor, so that I may abridge my speech.

Choler is twofold either naturall or not naturall, the naturall choler is twofolde, either that which is apt for nutrition, as of these parts which be proportionable vnto it in qualities hot & drie, and this is disper sed into the veines, and flowes throughout the whole body mixed with blood, the other is excremētall vnfit to nourish, which purged as a superfluous humour from the blood is receiued into the vesicle or vessel and bladder that is the receptacle of choler entearmed the gall. And this vsually when the vessell is surcharged distils from thence into the duodenum first, thē into the other intrals &c. that which is not naturall is of four sorts. [...], [Page] [...]. The first is vitelli [...] bilis of th [...] coulour of an egge yolke generated of palew choler, ouerheated with the acrimonyPers. calls it vi [...]ea bilis. of vnnaturall caliditie. The second is porr [...] cea of a leeky nature or greene coulour▪ The third c [...]rulea of a blewish or azure colour. The last aeruginosa of a rusty col [...]r. And all these be generated in the ventricle, b [...] sharp, tart, and sweet nutriments, as leeks mullard, burnt meats▪ honny, so fat meat [...] and all such as engender noysomnes vpo [...] the stomach. Whereupon coms our common disease called [...]: for sorro [...] and vehement exercise cause the yello [...] choler to flow in the ventricle, by whic [...] men being griped and pinched with pain [...] within do labor of this euill, which indeed hath a wrong name giuen it: for it is onely an affection or passion of the orifice of the ventricle, the mouth of the stomack, not of the heart, as Galen witnesseth. Now to discerneGa. de Hyp. et Plat. decretis lib. 2. cap. 8. a man of a cholerick complection, he is alwaies either oringe or yellow visag'd because hee is most inclined to the yellow iaundice: or a little swarthy, reddehaird, or of brownish coulour: very mege [...] and thin, soon prouokt to anger, & soon appeasd, not like the stone asbestos which once [Page] being hot cannot be quenched: he is leanfac'd & slēder bodied like Brutus & Cassius He is according to his predominant element of fire which is most full of leuity, most inconstant and variable in his determinations, easily disliking that which hee before approued: and of al natures in that this complectiō is counted to surpasse, the cholericke man for changeablenes is repu ted among the wise to bee most vndiscreet and vnwise. And indeed mutablenes and inconstancy are the intimates and badges whereby fooles are knowne.

[...].

Wise men be like vnto quadrangled stones

But fooles (like turning Globes) are fickle ones.

And if at any time he prooue constāt and sted fast, it is as Fortune is—cō stans in leuitate sua, stable in his instability: Let vs now discend from fire to aire.

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Cap. X. Of a sanguine temperature.

THe purple rose whose hi [...] encomium that witty Poetresse Sappho in a sweete Od [...]nce sang, did not meri [...] to bee adornd, with such beauteous titles of wordes, to be lim'd out in so liuely colours of Rhetorick, nor to be invested with such a gorgeous and gallant sute of poetry, as this goldē crasis, this happy temperature, and choise complection, this sanguine humor, is worthy of a panegyrical toung and to be lim'd out with the hand of art it selfe, Sappho thus speaketh of the rose.

[...] &c.

[Page]Which we may turne and change for our vse, on this manner: if there were a mo narch or prince to be constituted ouer all temperatures, this purple sanguine complection should, no doubts, aspire to that hie preheminence of bearing rule: for this is the ornament of the body, the pride of humors, the paragon of complections, the prince of all temperatures, for blood is the oile of the lampe of our life. If we doe but view the princely scarlet robes he vsually is inuested with, his kingly throne seated in the mids of our earthly citty, like the Sun amid the wandring Planets: his officers (I mean the veines and arteries) which are spred throughout this whole Politeia, yea disperst in euery angle to execute his command, and carry the liuely influence of his goodnesse, reuiuing those remote parts, which without his influence woulde otherwise be frettish with a chilnes, and in a short time be mortified: If we do but cast our eies vpon these glorious mansions, the sumptuous pallaces wherein he doth inhabit: the Dadalian costly Labyrinths where in he takes his turnes: If wee consider his wise subtle counsailours which dayly consort with him for the good estate of his [Page] whole kingdome, the [...] spirits, the very seate of diuine reason it selfe the fountaines of pollicy: If we marke this that his departing is the procurer of a ciuill mutinie and dissension between our soule and body, and that his meere absence bringe [...] in a dissolution of our temperate political state: if we waigh his excellent qualities he is endowed with, wherein consists the vnion of the parts of the whole, I meane hea [...] and moisture: If we note his delicat viand, his delicious fare he feedes vpon in his purity: his maiesty in aspiring so hie, his humlitie in, as it were, debasing himselfe so low, as to take notice of his lowest subiect, the most inferiour part, to kisse euen our to [...] (as it is in the prouerbe) to do vs good: If we note the mighty potentates that rebe [...] and wage warre against him, to ruinate his kingdome: as Acrasia, Angor, Inedi [...]: all in [...] continence and intemperance of Bacch [...], Cer [...]s and Venus, Care, Famine, and the like. If we poise all these together & many m [...]e we cannot but imagin that the blood is either a caelestiall maiesty, or a terrestriall deity, that among all the humors it doth farre excell all, and that hee which is possessed with a sanguine pure complection is graced [Page] with the princeliest and best of all. For the externall habit of body, for rare feature they go beyond al that haue this temper, being most deckt with beautie which consists in a sweet mixture of these two colours white and redde, and for the gifts of the minde it is apparent likewise to our vnderstāding that they do surpasse al, hauing such pure tempered & refined spirits: neither do I thinke that either melancholick men according to Aristotle, or cholericke men according to the opinion of Petrus Crinitus are inriched with a greater treasury of wit, for if the soule do follow the tē perature of the body, as certainely it doth, they then must needs excell for inuention who haue this best complectiō. Their spiritsCoelius Rhodiginus. sure haue the most exact temper of all, wherwith the soule as being in a paradise is cheefly delighted. Among all the humors the sanguine is to be preferd saith the Antiqu [...]ry: first because it coms nearest vnto the principles & groūd works of our life which stands in an attempered heat & moisture. Secondly because it is the matter of the spirits, where of chiefly dependes our life, the operation of our vegetatiue & animall vertue, yea it is the chiefe instrument wherewith [Page] our reasonable soule doth operate: for this is the philosophers climax. In the elements consists the body, in the body the blood, in the blood the spirits, in the spirits soule. Thirdly because it is a nutriment for all and singular parts of what qualities soeuer. [...] It is tearmed in Hebrue [...] sanguis for his nutrition, and sure it is, as it were, the dam or nurse from whose teats the whole body doth suck out and draw life.

Fourthly in that this humor being spēt our life also must needs vanish away: therfore some philosophers, as it is wel known to the learned, did not onely surmise, but constantly auer that the soule was blood, because it being effused, the soule also doth flit from the body: but that was a madde dreame, & no doubts if the sound of iudge ment had awoke them they woulde haue confessed themselues to haue been enwrap ped in a clowdy errour. They also that affirme men of this constitution to be dullards and fooles to haue a pound of folly to an ounce of pollicy, they themselues do seeme not to haue so much as a dram of discretion: and do erre the whole heauens. I confesse a sanguine complection may be so, as any other in their discrasie, [Page] yet not as it is a pure sanguine complection, but as there is mixed with the blood either the grosse sediments of melancholy or the lenta materies pituitae, tough phleume, when the blood is also ouerheated by reason of hot choler, or any other accidentary cause that generates a surplussage of blood, or endues the spirits with a grosenes and too hot a qualitie more then their nature can well sustaine with keeping their perfection and puritie.

From whence the blood hath his originall, it is apparently knowne, especially to them which are skild in the autopsie of Anatomie, the seat or fountaine head of it, is vena caua a great hollow veine, which strikes through the liuer, from whence it is conueighed by many cesterns, passages, and conduit pipes, throughout the whole body: like spraies and branches from the stemme of a tree. It hath his essēce from the chymus or juice of our aliment concocted: his rednesse is caused by the vertue of the liuer, assimilating it vnto his owne colour.

To speake more of the externall habit and demeanour of man that hath this complection: he euer hath an amiable looke, [Page] a flourishing fresh visage, a beautiful color which as the poet saith doth greatly commend one, if all other thinges be wanting▪

N [...]e minor his aderat subli [...]is gratia, formae,

Quae vel, si desint coetera cuncta, placet.

Cornelius Gallus of him selfe.

With vertues grac'd full debonaire was I,

Which (all defac'd) more highly dignifie.

They that are of this complection ar [...] very affable in speach, and haue a gracious faculty in their deliuery, much addicted to witty conceits, to a scholerlike [...], being fac [...]tosi not ac [...]tosi: quipping without bitter taunting: hardly taking any thing in dogeon, except they be greatly moued, with disgrace especially: wisely seeming eyther to take a thing some times more offensiuely, or lesse greiuously then they do, [...]loaking their true passion: they bee liberally minded; they carry a constant louing affection to them chiefly vnto whom they be endeared, and with whom they are intimate, and chained in the links of true amitie, neuer giuing ouer till death such a conuerst freind, except on a capitall discontent: they are very [Page] hairy: their head is commonly a [...] or amber-coloured, so their [...]eards, they are much delighted with a musicall consent and harmony, hauing so sw [...]e a s [...]pathy themselues of soule and body. And but for one fault they are [...]ainted with, they more well be tearmed Heroe [...] hominum, and that is ( [...] reason of that liuely abounding humour) they are somewhat too prone to Venery, which greatly alters their blessed state of cōstitutiō, drinks vp their hu [...]dum rad [...]le, enfeebleth the diuinest powers, consumes their pith, and spends the substance of the braine for sperma is [...] as many philosohhers,Stillicidium cerebri. Macrobius lib. 1. Saturnal. at the end. not without great reason affeuere: not ter [...]ncoctus sanguis, therefore as Macrobius saith, Hippocrates cals [...] that coitus est paruus morbus comitialis, and but for this they were supereminēt aboue all men, but their rare qualities and admirable vertues, do more then coūterpoize this naturall fault. For his resolutiō he is like the center, immoueable, neuer caried away with the heady streame of any base affection, but lies at the anchor of confidence and boldnes: he is neuer lightly variable: but beeing proudly harnest [Page] with a steely hart, he wil run vpō the push of great danger, yea, hazard his life against all the affronts of death it selfe: if it stand ether with the honour of his soueraigne, the welfare and quiet of his own country, the after fame and renowne of himselfe: els is he chary and wary to lay himselfe open to any daunger, if the finall end of his endeauour and [...]oile bee not plausible in his demur ring judgement.

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Cap. 11. Of the Phlegmaticke humour.

THis humour is called of the Graecians [...] and of the Latines vsually Pituita, which as Aetius noteth is so tearmed quasi petens vitam: by reason of the extreame cold moi sture it hath, being correspondent to the watry element, whereby it doth extinguish the naturall heate in man: and being caried with the blood, by his grosse substance doth thicken it, and stop the currents & passages of the blood, at least doth taint it with a cōtrary passiue & destructiue qualitie. Yet of al the humors, the phisicions say, and it is not improbable, this commeth nearest vnto the best, for it is a dulcet humour, which being concocted is changed into the essence of blood, and serues especially for the nutriment of the Phlegmaticke parts, as the braine, the Nuch [...] or soft pappe and marrow of the chein bone: but this is naturall: which of al these humors doth sonest digres into [Page] another grosse cold nature which will in processe of time proue that pernicious humor wherof AEtius speaks, their is thē to be noted phlegma naturale, wherof we spok euē now & non naturale of which these proceed Phlegm [...] 1. Crassum, 2 Gypseum, 3 Falsum, 4 Acetosum, 5 Tenue, & some others. For the first; that which is thicke is a crude1 substanee by multiplication in the ventricle, the bowels or the braine, or the blood whereof Hippocrates aduiseth men to euacuate themselues by vomit euery moneth, in his booke de victus ratione priua [...]rum. But for the bowels it needes not so much as for the braine and ventricle, for nature hath so ordained, that the yellow choler that flowes from the gall into the duod [...]num should purge the entralls, and wash away these Phlegmaticke superfluities, and this in time will turne to the nature of Gypseum 2 phlegma, which is of a slimier and in time of a more obdurate nature, insomuch it will grow as hard as plaister with long remaining in one place, like fen▪ water that turns into the nature of mudde: and this is it that staies in the ioints and causeth the incurable knotty goute, wherof the po et speakes.

Sol [...]re nod [...]sam n [...]scit medicina podagram,

[Page]Nec formidatis auxiliatur aquis.

This was also in a woman whereof Cael. Ovid. de Po [...]to lib. [...] Rodiginus makes mētion: I read, saith hee, among the Learned, of a certaine kind of Phleume like vnto plaister, bruised into water, which in a short space abiding in the ioints of the members, growes as harde as plaister stone it selfe: we haue saith he an exāple of a woman which was greiuously vexed with an itch, in the spondles or ioints of the backbone, & reines: which shee rubbing very vehemētly & racing the skin, small mammocks of stone fel from her, to the numberCaelius Rodiginus. cap. 12. of eighteene of the bignesse of dice, & the colour of plaister.

There is, salsum of a saltish nature by the admixtion of brackish humours & of choler,3 which being in the ventricle, causeth an hydropicall thirst, and somewhat excoriates the entralls. Plato in his Timaeus speaketh of this: [...] &c. for phleum being by nature sharp & of a brinish nature is the ofspring of all diseases which cōsists of a fluxile humoure, and according to the diuersity of places, whither this brackish humour doth insinnuate it selfe, the body is teend and accloid with diuers and [Page] manifold maladies: So Hippocrates speakes of this, [...].Hippocr. lib de flatibus. Bitter & salt phleume, whersoeuer it fals into vnwonted places it doth exulcerate. There is4 also Acetosum Phleg. sharp and tart, which almost is of the same nature with the former, caused cheifly of the mixture of melacholy indued with the same quallity: the last is called Tenue, which is very waterish5. and thin of substance, which we ordinarily tearme rheume: which comes of the word [...] to flow: there be three kinds of it: the first is called Branchus which hath his current from the head into the iawes, the second is called coriza or [...] which runs from the nostrils, wee call it the pose, thereupon blennus is vsed for a foole, homo obesa [...]aris: as contrariwise homo [...] ctae naris for a wise man, the last is called catarrus of [...] and [...]. whose matter hath the passage downward into the aspera arteria, the breast, and the roomes that are cō tiguous, which vsually is a cause of the cough: for the humours makes an oppilation in the lungs, and stoppe the pores whēce our brething aire doth euaporate [Page] and whither it being drawn in doth pierce and be take it selfe, thereupon there is made a res [...]ltation and a strugling with the humour and the ayre, which causeth the cough: though it may happen also the cause being in the aspera arteria, as it is wel knowne to them, that are but initiatedHippoc. in his booke de flatibus sect. 3. in Physicke: though Hippocrates seemes to say, all cough breeds in the midway of the arterie, not in the lungs: these are his words: for the spirit which we attract, saith hee, is caried to the lungs, and is sent backe by an [...] or regurgitation, and when the rh [...]ume distilling downe▪ doth meete the spirit ascending in the arterie, the cough is caused, and the phlegmaticke matter cast vp, which causeth an exasperation in the artery by the humour which lies, in the internall hollowes of the extuberances of our artery, which causeth a greate heate to bee ingendered ther by the coughing motiō, which heat draws a succedent phleum, from the braine still more procuring an extreame cough. All phleume is generated of cruditie, though it do attract some bad accidentary quality wherof it hath the denominatiō & the phisiciōs are of that opiniō that natural phleūe [Page] concocted will turne to bloud: Suidas saith of it, [...] Suidas. phleume is not engendred the first after meate, but the first af [...]e our aliment is blood, phleume is the first after incoction. For the place or receptacle of phleume, it is not determinate, but [...] is euident that it hath his mansion in th [...] braine, and the ventricle, and the blood▪ Where in the first if it be not euacuated in time, but still be suffred to accrue & clung together, it will breede a dysodia, and will indaunger the whole nature, by damming vp the poores of the braine, and there generating an epilepsie apolexie, lethargie, vertigo or any such disease that proceeds fro [...] such cold qualities and badde humoures which Fucshius speaks of at large, as also for the latter in the ventricle and blood, if itLeon. Fucshius de san and mal. hum. corp. 19. 21. [...]6. 28. 29. be not purged forth, it will grow to such a passe, that most of our nourishment will be conuerted into phleume, our veines will be possessed with a clammy humor which may hinder the course of the bloud, corrupting the spirits, and bringing a mortifying cold, ouer al the body: or it wil grow in the ventricle to such a masse that it [Page] will at the receit af any hot moisture send vp such an ascending some that it will bee ready to quirken and stifle vs: instance mote be giuen of many that haue beene troubled with the mater of it aboue measure. One latelie was so cloied with this humor, that as he sat in his chayre, he was suddenly surprised of the surging some, who swooned as he satte: and hauing oile of Synemon, (which is a souerainge help for it) ministred vnto him, at the length cā to himself by the heat of the oile which reuiued him, and voided a great aboundance of roped phleume by the loosening vertue of the same: for the intimates of this complection, they by nature are alwaise pale coloured; slow pac'd; drowsie headed of a weake constitution, for the debility of naturall heate: they be alwaies dull of conceit, of no quicke apprehension, faint hearted, most subiect to impostums: mild of nature, seldom incēsed with anger: vexed much with wrinching and griping in the bowels, sore tormented with the grieuous paine of the wind cholicke.

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Cap. 7. Of a me lancholicke complection.

THe melancholick man is said of the wise to be aut Deus aut Daemon, either angel of heauen or a fiend of hell: for in whō soeuer this humour hath dominion, the soule is either wrapt vp into an Elysium and paradise of blesse by a heauenly contemplation, or into a direfull hellish purgatory by a cynicall meditation: like vnto a huge vessell on the rowling sea that is either hoist vp to the ridge of a maine billow, or e [...]t hurried down to the bottom of the sea valley: a man is euer lightly cast into a trance or dead slumber of cogitatiōs by reason of his sad heauy humor, alwaies stoically visaged, like grout headed Archesilas, & them of whom the Poet speake [...]

—Aer [...]mnosique Solones

Persius.

Obstipo capite & figentes lumine terram,

Murmura cum secum & rabiosa silentia rodu [...]

Atque exporrecto trutinantur verba labello:

Aegroti veteris meditantes somnia▪ gigni

De nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reuerti.

[Page]L [...]ke pumpion▪ headed Solonists they looke

The dull earth is their contemplation booke:

They madly murmure in themselues for routh,

They heaue their words with le auer [...] frō their mouth:

They musing dream on th' anticke axiome

Nought's fram'd of nought, to nought ne ought may come.

Of al the 4. this humor is the most vnfortu nate and greatest enemy to life, because his qualities being cold and drie do most of al disagree from the liuely qualities, heat and moisture: either with his coldnes extinguishing naturall inherent heate, or with his drines sucking vp the natiue moisture: the melancholick man therefore is saide to be borne vnder leaden Saturne the most disastrous and malignant planet of all, who in his copulation and coniunction with the best doth dull and obscure the best influence and happiest constellation: whose qualities the melancholik man is endowed with, being himselfe leaden, lumpish, of an extreame cold and drie nature, which cuts in twaine the threed of his life long before it be spun: in so much that hee mayEuripid. in his Hecuba. rightly say with Hecuba, though she spoke of a liuing death.

[...]:

[Page]I am dead before the appointed time of death: for this humor if it be not oft ho [...]ped with mirth or wine: or some other accidetall cause which is repugnant to his effect, it will cause nature to droupe, and the flowre of our life to fade in the budding prime, these meanes to cherrish, foster and prolong our life, are like the rayes of the Sunne, to raise and lift vp the hyacinth or violet being patted downe to th'earth with suddaine drops of raine, whereof the poe [...] speaks.

Qualis flos violae se [...] purpurei hyacinthi

Demutit pressas rore vel imbre genas,

Moxque idem rad [...]s solis [...]epesact us a [...]i

Attollit multo [...] honore caput, &c.

Like as the Hyacinth with purple hew

Hangs down his head, ore [...] drencht with siluer de [...]

And e [...]t when Sol has drunk vp th'drizling rai [...]

With smiling cheare gins looke full pert againe.

Euen so the soule being pressed down [...] with the ponderous waight of melancholy, and as it were a thral vnto this dumpi [...] humor, is rouzed vp with wine and meriment especially, and iufraunchist againe into a more ample and heauenly freedom [Page] of contemplation. This humor is tearmed of many [...], as of Aulus Gell: so of Cae Aul. Gellius lib. 18. cap. 7. Noc. Attic. lius Rod: & others, who auer that those that are borne vnder Saturne, melancholike mē as Saturne is the highest planet of all, so they haue the most aspiring wits of all. DiuineCael. Rodig. 17. 5. Plato affirmes that those haue most dextericall wits who are wont to bee stirde vp with a heauenly fury: he saies frustra poeticas fores &c. he that knockes not at the portall of poets Inne, as furious and besid himselfe is neuer like to be admitted in: a man must not with the foole in the fable rap at the wicket with the six penny nayle of modesty, [...] he meane to haue entrance into the curious roomes of inuention: Seneca saith nallum [...] magnum ingenium fine mixtura dementiae, wit neuer relishes well vnlesse it tast of a mad humor, or there is neuer any surpassing wit which is not incited with fury: now of all complections melancholy is [...], furore concitata, most subiect to furious fits, whereby they conclude that melancholike men are endowed with the rarest wittes of all: but how shallow this their reason is, he that hath waded into any depth of reason may easily discerne: [Page] They mought prooue an Asse also of all other creatures most melancholike, and which will bray as if hee were horne madde to bee exceeding witty, they might say this as well, that because Saturne is the slowest Planet of all so their wits are the slowest of all; I confesse this, that oftentimes the melancholicke man by his contemplatiue facultie by his assiduitie of sad and serious meditation is a brocher of dangerous matchiauellisme▪ an inventor of stratagems, quirks, and pollicies, which were neuer put in practise, and which may haue a happy successe, in a kingdome, in militarie affaires by land, in nauigation vpon the sea, or in any other priuate peculiar place, but for a nimble dextericall, smirke, praegnant, extemporary inuention, for a suddain [...] pleasant conceit, a comicall ieast, a witty bourd, for a smug neat stile, for delightsome sentences, vernished phrases, quaint and gorgeous eloquution, for an astounding Rhetoricall veine, for a liuely grace in deliuery, hee can neuer bee aequiualent with a sanguine complection, which is the paragon of all, if it go not astray from his owne right temper and [Page] happy crasis nay the former must not so much as stand at the barre, when the latter whith great applause can enter into the lists. He that wishes this humor whereby he mote become more witty, is as fond as Democritus, who put out both his eyes voluntarily to be giuen more to contemplation. Of all men wee count a melancholicke man the very sponge of all sad humors, the aqua-fortis of mery company, a thumb vnder th'girdle, the contemplatiue slumberer, that sleepes waking &c. But according to phisick there bee two kindes of melancholy, the one sequestred from all admixtion, the thickest & driest portion of blood not adust, which is called naturall and runs in the vessels of the blood to be an aliment vnto the parts which are meCael. Rhod. lib. 57. cap. 5. lācholickly qualified, as the bones, grisles sinewes &c. the other is [...], which is a combust black choler mixed with saltish phlegmaticke humor or cholerick, or the worst sanguine. If you desire to know this complection by their habit and guise: they are of a blacke swarthy visage, dull-paced, sad countenanced, harbouring hatred long in their breastes [Page] hardly incensed with anger, and if angry, long ore this passion be appeased and mitigated, crafty headed, constant in their determination, fixing their eies vsually on the earth, while a man recites a tale vnto them, they will picke their face, bite their thumbes, their eares will bee soiourners; like Cleomenes in Plutarch, animus est in [...], their wit is a wool gathering, for laughing they be like a most to Anaxagoras, of whom Aelian sayes [...], hee neuer laught: they be much giuen to a solein monastich life, neuer welnie delighted with consort: very subiect to passions: hauing a droppe of wordes and a flood of cogitations vsing that of Pythagoras [...]: they are colde in their externall partes: of a kinde nature to them with whome they haue long conuerst, and though they seeme for some dislike to alienate their mindes from their friend, yet are they constant in affection.

But for the first kind of melancholy it is euer the worthier and better: This they call the electuary and cordiall of the minde, a restoratiue conseruice of [Page] the memory, the nurse of contemplation, the pretious balme of witte and pollicy: the enthousiasticall breath of poetry, the foison of our best phantasies, the sweete sleepe of the senses, the fountaine of sage aduise and good purueiance: and yet for all this it comes farre behinde the pure sanguine complection: neither doe I thinke it is to bee adorned with these habiliments of words, and pranckt vp with such glorious titles, as vsually it is, of them who doe vsually treat of it. For the latter, it causeth men to bee aliened from the nature of man, and wholy to discarde themselues from all societie, but rather like heremits and olde anchors to liue in grots, caues, and other hidden celles of the earth: the first may bee compared to an Egle quae altissimè volat: sed tardissimé se eleuat, which soareth hie, but is long ere she can raise vp her selfe; to Oedipus, of whom Euripides Euripid. in his Phaenis. sa. saith.

[...].

So this melancholy causeth one look [Page] to be on earth creeping, yet their mindes soaring aloft in heauen: The latter to Rufu [...] in Auso: (the fond Rherorician) of whome the Poe [...] speaks, that there was no difference betweene himselfe and his stone statue, but that it was harder and he softerAuson.

Vnum hoc dissimile est, mollior ille fuit.

Or to Niobe when she was converted into a marble image by Latona, for he [...] that is possessed with this melancholy hath both soule and body as glewed vnto the earth. The cheefe place of this humor is the splen, though it bee in many other diuers places. Now for all these humors it is good for a man first to make a wise scrutinie whether be inclining to the excesse of any of them, then to vse a diet, and to reiect such nutrimenies as will increase this humour which is predominant in him for the natures of all vsuall meates, fruites, liquors, spices, hearbs & such like, it is eath for a man of reading or iudgement, perfitly to be acquainted with, or at least to giue a guesse at their properties and qualities.

[Page]For this purpose Master Cogan hath made an abstract of our auncient authors, not vnworthy to be perused, intituled the Hauen of health, wherein is set downe a criterion of vsuall qualities and predominant properties, inherent in the forenamed subiects.

Chap. 13. Of the conceits of Melancholy.

FErnelius defines this latter kind of melancholy, which is feculent and adust, to bee mentis alienatio, Fernelius. qua laborantes vel cogitant, vel loquuntur vel efficiunt absurda, longeque aratione, & consilio abhorrentia, eaque omnia cum met [...] & moestitia: a losse of wit, wherewith one being affected, either imagins, speakes, or doth any foolish actions, such as are altogether exorbitant from reason, and that with greate timorousnes and sorrow. They that bee accloied with it are not onely out of temper for their organōs of body, but their minds also are so out of frame and distraught, that they are in [Page] bondage to many ridiculous passions, imagining that they see and feele such things, as no man els can either perceiue or touch,Aristot. lib. 3. meteor. cap. 4. like to him in Aristotle of whom the Philosopher saies it happened vnto him [...], &c. whoe beeing purblinde thought hee alwaies saw the jmage of one as he was walking abroad, to be an aduers obiect vnto him. We will treat of some mery examples where of we read in Galen, lib. 3. de locis affectis. in Laurentius Medices, cap. 7. de morbis malanchol. in Aetius, Scal [...] liger, Agrippa, Athenaeus and others. Ther was one possest with this humour, that tooke a strong conceit, that he was changed into an earthen vessell, who earnestly intreated his friends in any case not to come neare him, lest peraduenture with thier justling of him, he might be shakt or crusht to peeces. Another sadly fixing his eyes on the ground, and hurckling with his heade to his shoulders, foolishlie imagined that Atlas being faint and weary with his burthen, would shortly let the heauens fall vpon his head and breake his cragge. There is mention made of one that perswaded himselfe hee had no head, but that it was cut off, the Physicion [Page] Philotinus to cure him, caused a heauy steele cap to bee put on his head, which weighed so heauy and pincht him so greiuously, that he cried amaine his head ak't: thou hast then a heade belike quoth Philotinus. Iulius Scalliger relates a mery tal [...] of a certaine man of good esteeme, that sitting at the table at meate if he chaunc'd to heare the lute plaid vpon, tooke such a conceit at the sound or something else, that he could not hould his vrine, but was costrained eft, to pish among the strangers [...]ul. Scallig. legges vnder table: but this belongs to an antipathie more. There was one so Melancholicke that hee confidently did affirme, his whole body was made of butter, wherefore hee neuer durst come neere any fire, least the heate should haue melted him. Cippus, an Italian king, beholding & wondring at, in the day time, the fight of two great buls on the Theater, when he came home tooke a conceit hee should be horned also, wherfore sleeping vpon that strong conceit, in the morning he was perceiued to haue reall hornes, budding forth of his browe, onely by a strong imagination, which did eleuate such grosse vegetatiue humours thither; [Page] as did serue for the grouth of horns. We read of one that did constantly belieue,Peter. Mess. [...]d Corn. Agrippa. lib. 1. Occul. Phil. cap 64 he was the snuffe of a candle, wherefor [...] he entreated the company about him to blow hard, lest he should chaunce to go out. Another vpon his death bed, greatly groned and was vexed within himselfe aboue measure with a phantasie, who beeing demaunded why he was so sorrowfull and bidden withall to cast his mind vpon heauen; answered that he was well contēt to die, and would gladly be at heauen; but he durst not trauaile that way, by reason of a many theeues which lay in wait & ambush for him in the middle region, among the cloudes. There was an humorous melancholicke scholer, who being close at his study, as he was wiping his rheumatick nose, presētly imagined that his nose was bigger then his whole body, and that the weight of it weighed downe his heade, so that he altogether was ashamed to come in to company: The Phisicions to cure him of this conceit, inuented this meanes, they tooke a great quantity of flesh hauing the proportion of a nose, which they cunningly join'd to his face, whiles hee was a sleepe, then beeing waken they rased [Page] his skinne with a rasour till the bloud thrilled downe, and whiles hee cried out vehemently for the paine, the Physicion with a jirke twitcht it from his face, and threw it away. Of his conceit that thought himselfe deade, it is related of many, who was cured after this maner: they furnisht a table with variety of dishes, and caused three or foure in white linnen sheetes to sitte downe and eate the meate in his presence, who demaunded what they were? they answered that they were Ghosts: nay, then replied hee, if Spirites eate then I thinke I may eate too, and so hee fell roundly to his victuals, hauing not eate any in a sennight before. There was one that tooke a conceit hee was a God, who was thus ridde of his malady: hee was pend vppe in an iron grate, and hadde no meate giuen him at all, onely they adored him and offered to his deity the fumes of frankincense, and odours of delicate dishes which alwaies past by him: whose deity grew at the length so hūgry that he was fain to cōfesse his huma nity vnles he had mēt to haue been starued. [Page] The like we reade to bee reported of Menecrates who being a great physicion and doing many wonderfull oures, had such a swelling pride and an ouerweening opinion of himself, that hee esteemed himselfe a God, wherefor hee thus writ to Philip king of Macedone: [...]: thou rulest in Macedon, I in medicine: thou canst destroy these that are well if it please thee, I can restore health to them that are ill: I can deliuer the strong from sicknesse, if they will obey my precepts, so that they may come to the pitch of old age. I Iupiter giue life vnto them; but it is apparant by Athen [...]us that hee did this as besides himselfe with melancholy: for these be his words. [...] Athenaeus lib. 7. pag. [...]. that is: vnto whom being possest with this mad humour of melancholy; Philip writ in an epistle thus: Philip to Menacrates sanitatem mentis, his right wits. There was one that perswaded himself he was so light that hee got him iron shooes lest the wind should haue taken vp his heeles. An other ridiculous foole, of Venice, verely thought his shoulders and buttockes where made of britle glasse; wherfore he shunned all oc [Page] currents and neuer durst sitte downe to meat, lest hee should haue broken his crackling hinder parts, nor euer durst walk abroad lest the glazier should haue caught hold on him & haue vsed him for quarreles and paines. But of all conceited famous fooles, hee is most worthy to bee canoniz'd in the chronicles of our memory, that choos'd rather to die then to let his vrine goe, for hee assuredly belieued that with once making water he should drown all the houses and men in the towne where he went: to the taking away of which conceit, and to make him vent his bladder, which otherwise would in a short time haue caused him to die: they inuented this quirke, to wit, to set an old ruinous house forthwith on fire, the Physicions caused the bels to bee rung backeward, and entreated a many to runne▪ to the fire, presently one of the [...] inhabitants, of the towne, came running post hast to the sickeman, and let him vnderstand the whole matter, shewing him the fire: and withall desired him all fauours very earnestly and with counterfeit teares to let go his vrine and extinguish this great flame, which otherwise would bring a [Page] great indamagement to the whole towne, and that it will burne also the house vp where hee did dwell: whoe presently not perceiuing the guile, and moued by the mans pittifull lament and outcry, sent forth an aboundant streame of vrine, and so was recouered of his maladie: diuers other pleasant examples are recited of auncient writers: but our short breathing penne hastens to the races end.

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Cap. 14. Of the dreames of complections.

THe poeticall writers make men tion of two sorts of dreames, the one proceeding ex eburnea, the other e [...]porta cornea: from the former gate, fabulous and false euents do issue, from the latter true and full of sooth [...] fastnesse: which Coluthus the Thebane poet in his Helenes rape thus describes.

[...]

Coluthus in [...]

Which Virgil, in the vi. of the Aenead. at [...] the end thus also paints forth

Sunt geminae somni portae, quarum alter [...] f [...]ur

Maro6. AEnead.

Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus [...]bris,

Altera candenti perfecta nit [...]ns Elephanto:

[Page]Sed falsa ad coelum mittunt insomnia manes.

Which two gates maugre this my waiward and dumpish Genius, which hales me at this instant from my poeticall throne, I wil thus describe in our toung.

Wher slūbring Morpheus wons there bin two gats

Twixt both dull Somnium in her cabbin lies,

Who halfe a sleepe hard at the dawning waits

To a [...]nswere our nocturnall Phantasies:

Of hor [...] it is, whence she doth prophesie

Whence not, it is of burnisht Iuory.

Of these Homer in his 19. of the Odyss. a little after Pen [...]lopes dreame of the geese,Lucian in his Gallus or Sōnium speakes also of duae aureae portae. two golden gates. Ausonius in his Ephem. Horat: in his 3. carm: 27. Luciane, Plato and many others make mention. And true it is that all dreams be either true or false, either prognosticous of some euent to fall out, or false illusions: as when wee dreame wee haue store of gold with Luc: and all our gold is turned into cole [...]. But to draw more neare vnto our purpose: dreames bee of three kinds, as Ioach, Fortius [...], notes: Fatall, Vaine, Naturall.

Fatall or portentous which do forediuine2 [Page] and are, as it were, prophets to presage and foretell euents that shall happen vnto vs, whither they bee allegoricall or not, such a dreame is called, [...] of [...] & [...] as the scholemen speake, because they▪ foreshewe and tell an existent thing to come as wee would say. It is tearmed [...] and [...] especially if they bee in a hie measure: although Aristotle deny that any dream is sent of God, but prophanely.

For this is the difference betweeneSuidas. [...] and [...], saith Suidas, that the first is [...] [...] [...] [...], the last fore-prophesies. These [...]: or fatall dreames be prognosticous of either good or badde successe, as this,Cicero. Hecuba dreamed that shee had brought forth a burning torch, which was an intimate of Paris whoe was then in her wombe, and who should in after times bee the destruction and Fire brand of Troy; so Caesar Dictatour dreamed hee had copulation with his mother, which did vnclowd as by a silent Oracle, that the earth the mother of all thinges, should bee vnder his subjection. Penelope dreamed [Page] of twenty Geese that came into her hall, and did pecke vppe all her wheate:Fomer. 19. Odyss. and that an Eagle came from a nie mountaine, and seizing vppon them, did eftsoone kill them: which was a shadow of Vlisses (by the Eagle) whoe should put the suiters of Penelope to flight.

Astyages sawe in his sleepe a vision ofHerod. and Iustin. a Vine that did spread it selfe from the wombe of his onely daughter, by whose flourishing branches all Asia was ouershadowed: which foretould by the Augures, was a shadowe of Cyrus, by whose meanes, Astyages should loose the kingdome.

Socrates in Dio: Laertius dreamed that hee saw a yong Cygnet waxe flidge inApuleius de dogmat. Plat. lib. 2. and Laert. his bosome, and eft being winged to flie aloft, and fill the aire with melodious carrolls: which did as it were, prediuine the admirable eloquence of Plato his scholer. The history is well knowne of Craesus his dreames, whereof Pertelot speakes to Chaunticleere, in the mery tale of the Nuns priest.

Lo Craesus which was of Lydia king,

Met he not that he sat vpon a tree

[Page] Which signified that he should honged be.

Many moe be rehearsed in that place which is worthy to bee read: wherein the poet shewes himselfe both a Diuine, an Historian, a Philosopher and Phisicion. In treating of dreames wee will not intetmeddle with these, the ominous and fatall dreames wee read of in the sacred writ. One portentous dream I will recite which comes to my memory, and which I my selfe heard related of the party that dreamed it. There was one that dreamed she was walking in a greenish meade, all fragrant with beautifull flowers and flourishing plants, who whiles she wondred and stood as amaz'd at the glory of the spring: an auncient sire all withered aud lean-fac'd with eld, the very embleme of death, made toward her with a greene bow in his hand, sharpning it at the end, whoe, as shee fled away from his pursuit did dartit often at her, the branch three times comming very neare her yet did not touch her at all; who when hee see he could not preuaile with his aime, vanished eft away and left the bow behind, and shee as astounded and affright with the dreame presently awooke: now marke the sequel of it: within [Page] three daies after shee was for recreation sake, walking in a greenish inclosure hard by a pond side, and on a suddaine her brain was so intoxicate & distempered, whether with a spice of a vertigo, or what amazing disease soeuer I know not, but shee was hurried into a deepe pond with her head forward, being in great peril of drow ning, and if shee had not caught fast hold by chance on a branch that hung ouer the water, shee had beene drowned indeed. These also are fatall dreames, as when we dreame of Eagles flying ouer our heade, it portends infortunatenes: to dreame of mariages, dauncing and banquetting foretels some of our kinsfolkes are departed; to dreame of siluer, sorrow, if thou hast it giuen thy selfe: of gold, good fortune; to loose an axill tooth or an eye, the death of some speciall friend: to dreame of bloody teeth, the death of the dreamer: to weep in sleepe, ioy: to contemplate ones face in the water, and to see the dead, long life: to hādle lead, some melācholick disease: to see a Hare, death: to dream of chickins and birds, commonly ill lucke: all which, and a thousand more I will not auer to be true, yet because I haue found them or many of [Page] them fatall both by mine owne and others experience, and to be set downe of I arned men; and partly to shewe what an ominous dreame is, I thought good to name them in this chapter.

Vaine dreames be: whē a man imagins hee doth such things in his sleepe, which he did the day before: the species being1. strongly fixed in his phantasie, as if he hauing read of a Chim [...]ra, Sphynx, Tragelaphus, Centaurus or any the like poeticall fiction, sees the like formed in his phantasies according to their peculiar parts: & such as when wee dreame wee are performing any bodily exercise, or laughing, or speaking &c. these also may bee fatall, as if wee dreame wee do not any thing with the same alacritie, with the like cunning, and in the same excellency in our sleepe as we did them in the day time, they foreshew some perturbation of body, so saith the Physicion in his treatise ofHippoc. in his booke of dreames. dreames: for hee saith that those dreames which are not aduerse to diurnall actions, and that appeare in the purity of their sub iects, and eminency of the conceiued species, are intimates of a good state of health as to see the Sunne and Moone note clipsed, [Page] but in their sheene glory: to journey without impediment in a plaine soile, to see trees shoot out and ladened with variety of fruites, brookes sliding in sweete meades with a soft murmure, cleare waters, neither swelling too hie nor running nie the channell, these sometimes are vaine and portend nothing at all, some times they signifie a sound temperature of body. The last kind which is most appertinent to our treatise, is a dreame Naturall:3 this ariseth from our complections, when humours beene too aboundant in a wight, as if one bee cholericke of complection, to dreame of fire-workes exhalations, comets, streking & blazing meteors skirmishing, stabbing, and the like. If sanguine to dreame of beautifull women, of flowing streames of bloud, of pure purplecolors. If Phlegmaticke, to dreame of suroūding waters, of swimming in riuers of torrents and suddaine showers, &c. If Melancholicke, to dreame of falling downe from hie turretres, of trauailing in darke solemne places, to lie in caues of the earth, to dreame of the Diuell, o [...] blake & furious beastes, to see any the like terrible aspects. [Page] Albertus magnus dreamed that he druncke blacke pitch, who in the morning when heCoelius Rhod [...]. awoke did voide an abundance of blacke choler. Concerning these forenamed cō plectionate dreames looke Hippocrates de in somniis sect. 4 But these may belong more vn to a distemperature by a late misdiet, in any complection confusedly, then to a natural complection indeed: as when a man after a tedious wearisome iourney doth inflame his body with too much wine, in his sleep he shall see fires, drawn swords, and strange phantasmaes to affright him, of what complection soeuer he be▪ so if wee ouerdrinke our selues we shall dreame (our nature beeing welnie ouercome) that we are in great danger of drowning in the waues: so if wee feed on any grosse meates, that lie heauy vpon our stomacke, and haue a dispepsy or difficult concoction, wee shall dreame of tumbling from the top of hie hils or walls and waken withall before wee come to the bottome as we know by experience in our owne body, though not of a melancholick constitution, yet it should seeme too, that this humor at that instant domineeres especially, by reason of the great tickling of our splen in falling from any hie roome, [Page] which we eath perceine when wee awake suddenly out of that dream. They that are desirous further to quench their thirst concerning this point, let them repaire vnto the fountaines: I meane to the plentifull writinges of such learned authors, as write of dreames more copiously, as of Cardane that writes a whole treatise de insomni [...]s, and the Alphabet of dreames and Peter Martyr part. 1. com. pla. cap. 5. and many others.

Cap. XV. Of the exactest temperature of all, whereof Lemnius speakes.

THey that neuer haue rellished the verdure of dainty delicates, thinke homely fare is a secōd dish, saith the Poet; they that neuer haue beene rauished with the sense-bereauing melody of Apollo, imagine Pans pipe to be surp [...]ssing musick: they that neuer haue hearde the sweet-voicd Swan & the Nightingale sing their sugred notes, do perswade them selues, that Grashops & Frogs with their [Page] brekekekex coax can sing smoothly when they crouk harshly: as Charon in Aristoph: bidding Bacchus as he past to hell in his boate ouer Ach [...]on to row hard, for then he should hear a melodious sound of frogsAristophanes in his Ranae.

— [...] &c.

Singing like Swans before their death: so they that haue neuer seen in any, or at least neuer contemplated this heauenly harmonicall crasis, this excellent and golden tē perature, this temperament ad pondus, doe surmise that there cānot be a more persect crasis & sweet cōplection thē those that are vulgar to the cōmon eie: whē indeed there is no cōplection no temper that is perfect and pure to any eye, though the sanguine do excell al the rest:

Quantum lenta solent inter vibur [...]a Cupressi.

As far as the high & beautifull Cypresse tree peeres ouer the limber shrub, & lower Tamarisk. This golden temperāture must onely be vnderstood and seen with the internall eies of reason, seeing it hath not a reall existence. Which wee may describe notwithstanding, to shew how neare hee that hath the best, comes nie vnto the best and how farre hee that hath the worst doth wander and digresse from the best. [Page] He whom we are taking in hand to blaz [...] out according to our meaner pencill, may be likned to Cicer [...]s and Quintilians orator to Xenophons Cyrus, to Aristotles felix, to Sir Thomas Moores Eutopia, to Homers Achilles, to the Stoicks perfect man, to Euripides his happy soule in the end of his Electra, & i [...] his Hecuba where he sayth:

— [...].

Hecuba her wordes in Euripides.

He is in a most happy case to whome neuer a day their happens any ill. There was neuer any of these in the same perfection they are described, who is so happy? na, who on earth almost cānot say with the Sicophant in Aristophanes

[...]

Aristop. in his Plutus. Act. 4. S [...]aen 3.

I am thrize vnhappy, and fouretimes, and fiuetimes, and twelue times, and a hu [...] dred times. None of these (I say) are limd out, as if there were the like in eminency and dignity, but either for affection [Page] or a fume of glory by their applausiue description, or else for a debere, to shew what they ought to be: so this temperature must be depainted forth of vs, not according to his existency, as if there were the like extāt but according to a kinde of exigency, as it should be in herent. The man then that hath this crasis is absolute in the equall poize of the elements: he is said to be perfect according to the perfect square of Polycletus, who as Fabian report for his cunning did merit a name aboue al mortal mē for caruing im [...]ges, being called the Archety pus of all artificers: in this eucrasy there is an absolute simmetree, a sweet concent, & harmony of the first qualities: in the whole sub iect a conspiration of all faculties. He that is endowed with it, all his senses be vigorous & liuely, all his inuate powers do performe their duties without endamagemēt ech to other, & without impeachmēt to theHippoc. de vict. [...]at. lib. 1. [...]ct. 4. whole. His material parts haue [...] which implies that there is [...]: his brain is neither moist nor drie, his mind acute, industrious▪ prouident, his manners incorrupt, wit [...], dextericall, pregnant, admirable: his memory stable, like vnto Senecaes who [Page] witnesseth of himselfe that hee could easily haue recited by heart, many thinges vsq [...] ad miraculum, to the admiration of al men: like vnto Caesars, who could speake 2 & 20.Seneca in his pro. logue to his declamations. languages, write, inuent, and vnderstand a tale told all at one time: his nature calme not exposed to the blast of vitious perturbations, as he is not rash and heady in his attempts, so is he no procrastinatour, but in al enterprises making choice of wisdom and iudgement his delegates: his disposition is so generous that without all compulsion, he will raine in his head strong & vntamed appetite with the bridle of reason: hee is neither puffed vp with prosperity, nor of an abiect and drowping cariage by aduersitie, though hee be tossed neuer so vpon the surging waues of Fortune, hee holdes fast the helme of confidence, neuer in the least daunger to sinke downe to the gulfye bottome of despaire: being in a peck of troubles he looses not a graine of courage and true fortitude: for patience hee is another Atlas that will cadge a whole world of iniuries without fainting, in whō are affections, but they be all vsed in their proper obiects, he follows not their stream he is witty, not addicted to scurrility, al his [Page] conceits are seasoned with the salt of discre tion, as they tast not of a scaenicall leuitie, so they rellish not a Cynical grauity & seuerity: In matters of moment he demeans himselfe as a graue vmpier, with all wise deportment, he ballances al his words and deeds with grauitie and discretion, his toung is the vsher of his sage advise repentance which vsually lies at the door of rash folly neuer once comes so much as within the precincts of his court: for his chastity he is an admirable president & pattern, his christall eies and sweet countenance are the herrauldes and characters of his gratious and compenable, and vertuous mind▪ his very nod is vices scourge, in his whole habit, coulour, lineaments, beauty, portratour, there appears an heroicall maiesty, their shines an admirable decency, in so much that he may easily allure the greedy spect [...]tour, not only to stand admiring of him, but with all entirely to embrace and loue him. His head is not oblique and angular but right orbicular: his haite not harsh but smooth & soft, his forehead not har [...]oring in the wrinckling pale [...]nuy, but like theirs rather:

Qui Thymelem spectant [...] Catonē [Page] his face is not ouer spread with the clouds of discōtent at any time but hauing a louely amiable aspect, full of all pleasāce, wherin the snowy lilly and the purple rose doe striue for pr [...]heminence and dominion: in his life he is neither a Democritus who euer laught, nor a [...] Heraclitus, alwais blubbring as the Poet speakes of them.

[...]erpetus risu pulmonem agitare solebat

Democritus, quoties a limine mouerat vnum

Prohibi [...]que pedem: fleuit contrar [...]us alter.

The one each where with euer-kincking vaine

The bellowes of his breath he tore in twaine:

The other with a double- [...]luced eye

Did sacrifice his teares to vani [...]ies

His gate also is sage and graue, not affected and strouting like a stage-plaier [...] his whole body (as Marlo sayth of Leander) as straight as Cerces [...]ande: who is all gratious to behold: like Achilles of whome Maximus Tirrhus sayes, he was not onely to be extold for his externall and golde [...] lockes▪ (for Euphorbus in like manner had faire yellow haire) but because he was ado [...] ned with all vertue: in whome as Mus [...] [Page] saith of Hero their wons aboue the ordinary number among the Poets to wit an hundred Graces: he is all fauour as Amarantha in the Poet was all-Venus:

Hic Amarantha iac [...]t, quaesi fas vera fateri,

Sānazariu [...] epigram. lib. 2.

Aut Veneri similis, vel Venus ipsa [...]uit.

Here Amarantha lies, who was of right,

Like Venus faire, or ce [...]tes Venus hight.

Like Ephesius Euthimou [...] of whome Achilles Tatius saith that he was— [...] Achil. Tat. lib. 8. pag. 206. as faire among men as Rodope amongst the virgins. Like Pindars Alcimedon of whom he sayes.

— [...]

Pindar. Olymp. [...]d. 8.

He was comely and faire-visag'd and did shadow his beauty by any blemish of bad action. In whome both for internall and external good as once it was spo [...]e of thatEuagrius Scholast. lib. 6. cap. 1. worthy Emperour Mauritus [...]-piety & fe [...]city linked themselues together the former forcing the latter: who couered not onely his head with the crowne [...]nd [...] [Page] his lims in purple, but imbellisht his mind also with pretious ornaments, who of all other Emperours empir'd ouer his owne person, tyrannizing as it were ouer the de mocratie of base & vulgar affections. Yet more for his generous spirits and singular wisedom for that internall beauty, hee is like to Socrates of whom Xenophon in that pithy Apology, sayth [...]. Whē Xenophō in his Apology for Socrates at the very end. I do call to minde the man himselfe, his wisedome, his generous mind neither can I not remember him, nor remembring of him not highly extoll him: and this I will say that if any of them which haue a zealous desire to obtaine vertue doe conuerse with any with whome he may more profit himselfe, him sure I adiudge most worthy of the fellowship of the Gods. To winde vp the clue of our speech with a patheticall place of the Poet: for all absolutenes, he is like vnto that famous Stilicon of whome [...]laudiā in his [...] ▪ saith▪ first inferring this, [...] agre [...]s with that speech of [...] concerning the goddesses i [...] [...] [...] ▪ [...]rm in some sort) that all good h [...]p is [...] to no man: some is graced [...]ith thi [...] beautie on this part▪ some on that [...] all fauour: saith h [...] highly in his [Page] praise, that others hauing but the compendium of excellency he alone had it in the greatest volumes.Claudianus in his 1 of the panegy. ris. So Angelus Pol. sayes of Laur. Medices in his 4. epist. epist. 2. Ia [...] cobo Antiquariō. quibus in singulis excellere alii magnum putant ille vnuiersis pariter emineret.

——spar guntur inomnes

In te mixta fluunt & quae diuisa beatos

Efficiunt, collecta tenes.—

All those gifts which were dispersed among all, are combin'd in the, and whose seuerall parcels & as we may say very drops to taste on were happines, they all concur in thee, thou hast the sourse & full stream, whereby thou maist euen bath thy selfe in blisse.

Now my pen will needes take his leaue of his faire loue the paper, with blubbering as you see these ruder tears of ink: I [...] there be any parergeticall clauses, not suiting true iudgement, and as impertinent to this our treatise, as surely some there be, I must needs ingeniously confesse it as a default:

[...],

Athenaeu [...]. q

That I may speake, though not with the very words; yet according to the sense of Agathon in Athenaeus, to make a by worke a [Page] worke, is to make our worke a by worke. Yet am I not plunged ouer head and ears in Parergaes. They are (if it were so that I made much vse of them) but as our po [...]ticall Episodeious as Virgil hath in his Culex whereof Ioseph Scalliger in his booke entituledIoseph. Scallig. Maronis appendix, and in his comment vpon these words [inter quas impia Lotos impia] in the Culex, saith: all these the Poets descriptions althogh they be nothing but Parerga, notwithstanding they fill vp the greatest roome of the pages of this poem: so that there is the least portion of that which is most competent and requisite. So in Catullus description of his Puluinar Catul. writes most of the complaint of Ariadne, of the three fatal Ladies, but of God Hymen and of mariage scarce any whit at al so in this Culex saith he, are many wordes writ in the praise of the rurall life, the shep hards happines, the limming out of plants &c. but of the Gnat he speaks least of all: for saith he in pictura tam tenui, nisi parerga Pag. 17. adhibueris, quid dignum oculis proponi potest? in so little a toy vnlesse there were obiters, what would be worthe vewing? which say ing may not much be vnfitting our purpose: though the Poets haue a great prerogatiue [Page] to arrogate whatsoeuer: I accoūt this pictura tenuis in regarde of it selfe: and if not I hope I may intermeddle now and then a thing incidently by the way, so it benot wholy out of the way. I know some selfe-conceited nazold, & some iaundicefac'd idiot, that vses to depraue & detract from mens worthines by their base obloquy (the very lime twig of our flying fame) and that with Aristarchus read ouer and ouer read a booke onely to snarle at, like curious curres, and maligne the authour, not to cull out the choisest things to their owne speciall vse: like venemous spiders extracting a poisonous humor, where the laborious bees do sip out a sweet profitableTheodoret. in calce sermo. 1. sic. I [...]ecrat. ad Demonio▪ [...]. in fine. iuice: some such I say, may peraduenture be moued at these Parergaes and other escapes, as though they alone were Italian Magnificoes and great Turkes for secretariship, but if they be greeued, let their toadswolne galls burst in sunder for me, with puffing choler: let them turne the buckle of their dudgeon anger behinde, lest the toung of it catch their owne dottril skins, I waigh them not a nifle. When they haue spoke all they can silly soules, they can worke themselues no great aduancement, [Page] and me no great disparagement. But here will we now cast our happy anchor, being in the Rhode and hauen of our expectati on: this little barke of ours, being soust in combersom waues, which neuer tryed the foming maine beforne, hath toyled long inough vpon the Oceā: Phoebus beginneth low to west: yea now, is gone downe to visit, and call vp the drowsy Antip [...]des. If the radiant morne of fauour do greete vs with serenity of countenance, we mean to attempt a further Indian voiage, & by the happy guidance of our helme-mistresse Minerua, weel fraught and ballisse our little ship with a golden trafficke, what vnrefined mettall soeuer she is now ladened withall. In the meane time wee will lay in morgage a peece of our fallowed inuention, till our bankerout faculty bee able to repay that deeper debt we owe to true learning.

[Page]

The Clôse.

AS flaring Phebus with hirradiant face,

[...]throniz'd in a golden chatre of state,

The watching [...]dles of the night doth chase

To secke out hidden [...], all passi [...]onat

S [...] man in richest ra [...]es of [...]ature drest,

Doth quite obscure the glory of the rest.

Whatseuer thing is seene, it hath his peere:

The Citty a soueraigne, the heauen [...] a Sunne

The birds an Egle, beasts a Lion feare:

The flowers a Rose▪ in th [...]lims a [...]art do [...]h wonne:

The VVorld a Center: Center hath a Man

Her lording▪ primate, metropolitan.

This mans a little world the Artists say,

Wherein a wise intelligence doth dwell,

That reason hight which ought to beare the sway

The sphear [...]s our lims in [...]otion that excell.

The consort which by mouing [...] doth fall,

Teelds harmony to both angelicall,

Mans rarer gifts if we do duely scan,

Sag [...] wisedome, peerlesse wit and comely f [...]ature,

He seemes a very Dems▪ God, no man,

Embellished with all the gifts of nature:

His heauenly soule is in his earthly [...]eld

An orient pearle within a ring of gold.

His co [...]ely body is a beautious [...],

[...] fairely to the owners princely minde,

[Page]Where wandring vertues lodge oft l [...]dg'd with sinne,

Such pilgrims kindest entertainment finde.

An I [...]ne, said [...], O no that name's vnfi [...],

Sith there stay not a night, but dwell in it.

Man is the centers rarest wonderment,

Who waxeth proud with this her carriage

And decks her selfe with arras ornament,

For him to tread as on a lofty stage:

For him once yeerely she her selfe does dight,

With greenest smarald to refresh hi [...] sight,

The heauens are full of sadder anguishment

That they ini [...]y not such a worthy wight,

The earth is full of dreary lang [...]ishment,

That heanens e [...]y her that is hers by right.

The Sun [...]t that str [...]ues all day with him for grace,

At night for shame is faine to shroud his face.

Faire Cinthia's often in the pining waine,

When she inioyes not his society,

And e [...]t her glory it at [...]ull againe,

VVhen he but daine [...] to view her diety,

VVhilom invelloped in misty cares

She now displayes her bright dische [...]ild hairs.

True image of that [...] celestiall power,

Equall to angels in thy happy state

VVhose happy soule should be a pleasant bowre,

[...]or Sanctity, her selfe to recreate,

By right Pandora hath enriched the [...],

VVith golden gifts of immortalitie

Thus man is made though he himselfe doth marre,

By that alluring sinne of luxury:

And from his excellency wend [...]th farre,

By letting loose th [...] raigne [...] to venerie,

His soule in lust till death away it [...]

Like AEsopes pearle is in a dunghillpen [...].

[Page]

Looke as the sable night with ietty h [...]w,

In darkenes [...]uffles [...]p the gladsome day,

And Cynthia in her clowdy cell doth [...]ew,

Lest she the nights sowle visage should be [...]ray

So noisome riot rising as a dampe

Doth quite extinguish reasons burning lampe.

Cheefe fo [...]-man vnto man is lauish Riot,

VVhich makes him be inferiour vnto man▪

For whan the appetite [...] his diet

The soules enseebled powers full little can▪

Of glorious creatures greater i [...] the fall,

Corruption of the best, is worst of all

Reasons fair'st turret hiely seated i [...],

(Seat of the soules power▪ which doth most excell)

VVithin like [...]urnings of Meander tis,

(Or Labyrinth) where Rosamond did dwell

Atriple wallth' Anatomists espie

Before you come where Rosamond doth lie.

The first is made of Elephantine tooth

Strongly compact, his figure circular,

The wall rough [...], and yet the worke is smooth,

The fairest things not euer obiect are.

So clowdy curtaines drawne oreth' azurdski [...]

(As ey [...]ds) coner Phoebu [...] slumbring eye.

The other twaine are not so strongly [...]ight,

They rather serue for comely decencie

And teach vs that a prince within doth sit,

Enthron'd in pom [...] in highest maiesty.

That things more highly prizde are more pent in

Lest they mote be entic't with flattring sinne.

So th'horne mad Bull must keepe the golden fleeco

In bower of brasse faire Danac must be pent,

The Dragon watch your fruite Hesperides.

[Page]The All [...]eyd Argus must faire [...]o tent:

The labyrinth close peerelesse Rosamond:

The fragranst rose must thornes enuiron round.

The wall which framed is of iuory

Aglorious double cas [...]ment doth co [...]taine:

Each answering both in vnisormity,

And both the fairest obiects entertaine [...]

The opticke nerues be gallertes wherein,

The soule doth walke and these free obiects win.

Within this pallace wall a Goddesse pure

Whom Ratio all the learned schoolemen call,

Closely herselfe within doth heare in mure,

A goddesse sober, wise, celestiall:

Who sitting, though within her regall chair [...],

Oft head-strong appetites her o [...]erbeare.

Riot the metropolitane of sinnes,

Laies dayly seidge against this goodly towre:

And first by pleasing baites Riot begins,

Then by constraint this virgine to deflowre

The towre at length is raiz'd by battery,

Which could not be orecome by flattery.

Ay melso faire a Fort to be throwne downe,

That it so faire, no lenger time may last:

That lust should be impald with reasons crown [...],

That [...]au nous Riot should this pallace waste:

That she the mistresse of our lawlesse will

With vncl [...]ane excesse thus her selfe should spill,

Ay [...]onster sinne of pleasing luxurie,

The very hecticke feauer of the soule:

The harbinger of wofull misery,

Sweet poison quaft out of a golden bowle,

Phre [...]sy of appetite blinde Cupids gi [...]e,

To catch our brain-sicke Am [...]retto's i [...].

The Lethe of a stable memory:

[Page]The wild fire of the wit▪ the mint of woe [...]:

A falling sicknes to our treasury:

A mate, that ere with irreligion goes

An Epicure that huggeth fading ioy,

Before eternity with least annoy.

Riot's a barke inth▪ minde vnconstant main [...],

Tost to [...] and fro with wafts of appetite,

Where reason holdes the helme with carefull paine,

But cannot steare this laden keele aright:

Here wisdome at a gall [...]slaue is pent,

Scourg'd with disgrace and fed with discontent.

Now eath it is to take the golden fleece:

The al [...]eyd rgu [...] now a sleepe is [...]ast:

The quick eid Dragons slaine by Hercules:

Faire Dana [...] is deflowrd though nere so chaste.

By clues of winding pleasures now is found

Atract to kill the leefest Rosam [...]nd▪

Abandon, and shake handes with riot then,

Once let him not in thy faire pallace rest:

Happy's that soule that doth not riot ken,

That keepes not open house for such a guest,

Who loues to haue his lims with fatnesse lin'd

Their liu's within his li [...]s a meager minde.

Defeat these dainty li [...]t of wonted fare,

Weane thou thy appitite while it is young,

Lest that, it surfeting thy state impaire,

VVith that two-sold port-cullis of thy tongue.

Stop thou the way le [...]t [...]o much enter in.

The enemies of vertue but the friend of sinne.

VVho hunts nought else in th' Aprile of his daies,

But persi [...]n faire too wanton meriment,

A winter storme, in May, his life shall craze,

His fatall end i [...] pyning drearyment:

The onely meed that comes by luxury,

[Page]Is ser [...]le neede fowle end, and obloquie

Till fond desire be bannisht, from within

Against his leige a rebell he will rise,

Draw not the curtaine ore this slumbring sin,

That light of reason may him▪ eft surprize:

For if in darknesse thou dost let him lie

Heele dreame on nought, but hellish v [...]llanie.

VVhen Morpheus doth a sleepe thy senses lull,

Vse sleepe with sober moderation:

Too little, weakens wit; too much, doth dull;

And greatly hinders contemplation.

VVho keepes a golden meane is sure to finde,

A healthfull body and a chearefull minde.

Catastrophe lectori.

Daigne Gra [...]taes nymphes, our vth to entertaine;

Vntillour wit can reach an Ela straine▪

Ovid.

Among Cames siluer swan [...] that sweetely sing,

VVe Baucis and Philemons praesent bring.

Iulian.

Great Theseus, though Hecale were not able,

Vouchsav'd acceptance of her meaner table,

AElian.

Renowned Artaxerxes humbly tooke

The praesent of Synatas from the brooke▪

Our power is as a drop and little can;

Let this suffice, our minde's an Ocean,

Ere long, our Muse if now you daign to spare

Sheele feede your eares with more delicious fare.

‘Qui non est hodie, cras magis aptus erit.’

FINIS.

[Page]

Information about this book

Title statement

The optick glasse of humors. Or The touchstone of a golden temperature, or the Philosophers stone to make a golden temper wherein the foure complections sanguine, cholericke, phlegmaticke, melancholicke are succinctly painted forth, and their externall intimates laide open to the purblind eye of ignorance it selfe, by which euery one may iudge of what complection he is, and answerably learne what is most sutable to his nature. Lately pend by T.W. Master of Artes.

Walkington, Thomas, d. 1621.

Edition statement

1607

Publication

Publisher

Text Creation Partnership,

Place of publication

Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) :

Date

2003-11 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1).

ID [DLPS]

A14665

ID [STC]

STC 24967

ID [STC]

ESTC S119414

ID [EEBO-CITATION]

99854621

ID [PROQUEST]

99854621

ID [VID]

20048

Availability

This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal. The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

Series

Early English books online.

Notes

(EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A14665)

Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 20048)

Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1475-1640 ; 724:1)

Source

— The optick glasse of humors. Or The touchstone of a golden temperature, or the Philosophers stone to make a golden temper wherein the foure complections sanguine, cholericke, phlegmaticke, melancholicke are succinctly painted forth, and their externall intimates laide open to the purblind eye of ignorance it selfe, by which euery one may iudge of what complection he is, and answerably learne what is most sutable to his nature. Lately pend by T.W. Master of Artes., Walkington, Thomas, d. 1621..

Extent

[12], 86, [2] leaves : ill. (woodcut)

Imprinted by Iohn Windet for Martin Clerke, and are to be sold at his shop without Aldersgate,. London :: 1607.. (T.W. = Thomas Walkington.) (Partly in verse.) (Running title reads: The glasse of humors.) (The last two leaves are blank.) (Variant: title page has "by T. Walkington ..".) (Reproduction of the original in the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery.)

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