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.

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.

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 9]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.

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.

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 11] 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,

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 12] 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.

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 13] 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 14] 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.

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

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 15] 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.

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 16] 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

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 18] 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.

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.

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 19] (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:

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 20] 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.

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.

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 22] 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 23] would be abbreuiated: I doe not speake a­gaine the diuine limitation. What saith the schoole of diet.

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.

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 24] 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.

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 25] wines vnto mortall men to dispell cloudy cares, Henry Stephane, in the imitation of that old verse in the poet thus speakes.

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.

[...] &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 26] 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 27] Satyricall pen: it makes him right eloquent, and speake with aliuely grace,Frideric [...] Mille [...]ma­nus.

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.

Nothing elaborates our concoction [Page 28] 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:

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 29] 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.

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 30] 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 31] 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.

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 32] 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 33] 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.

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.

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 34] 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.

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 35] 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.

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 36] 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.

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.

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.

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 38] 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.

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 39] 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.

[Page 40]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 41] 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.

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 42] 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

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 43] 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 44] 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.

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.

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 45] 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 46] 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.

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 47] 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,

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.

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 49] 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 50] 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 51] 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.

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.

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 53] 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 54] 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 55] 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 56] 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.

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.

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.

[Page 57]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 58] 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 59] 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▪

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 60] 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.

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.

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 63] 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 64] 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.

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 [...]

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.

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 66] 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 67] 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 68] 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.

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 69]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 70] 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 71] 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 72] 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.

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.

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

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.

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 74] 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.

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 76] 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 77] 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 78] 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.

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:

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:

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

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 79] 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 80] 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.

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 81] 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:

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.

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 82] 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.

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:

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 83] 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.