melancholy extends itself not to men only, but even to vegetals and
sensibles. I speak not of those creatures which are saturnine,
melancholy by nature, as lead, and such like minerals, or those plants,
rue, cypress, &c. and hellebore itself, of which [468]Agrippa treats,
fishes, birds, and beasts, hares, conies, dormice, &c., owls, bats,
nightbirds, but that artificial, which is perceived in them all. Remove
a plant, it will pine away, which is especially perceived in date
trees, as you may read at large in Constantine's husbandry, that
antipathy betwixt the vine and the cabbage, vine and oil. Put a bird in
a cage, he will die for sullenness, or a beast in a pen, or take his
young ones or companions from him, and see what effect it will cause.
But who perceives not these common passions of sensible creatures,
fear, sorrow, &c. Of all other, dogs are most subject to this malady,
insomuch some hold they dream as men do, and through violence of
melancholy run mad; I could relate many stories of dogs that have died
for grief, and pined away for loss of their masters, but they are
common in every [469]author.
Kingdoms, provinces, and politic bodies are likewise sensible and
subject to this disease, as [470]Boterus in his politics hath proved at
large. As in human bodies (saith he) there be divers alterations
proceeding from humours, so be there many diseases in a commonwealth,
which do as diversely happen from several distempers, as you may easily
perceive by their particular symptoms. For where you shall see the
people civil, obedient to God and princes, judicious, peaceable and
quiet, rich, fortunate, [471]and flourish, to live in peace, in unity
and concord, a country well tilled, many fair built and populous
cities, ubi incolae nitent as old [472]Cato said, the people are neat,
polite and terse, ubi bene, beateque vivunt, which our politicians make
the chief end of a commonwealth; and which [473] Aristotle, Polit. lib.
3, cap. 4, calls Commune bonum, Polybius lib. 6, optabilem et selectum
statum, that country is free from melancholy; as it was in Italy in the
time of Augustus, now in China, now in many other flourishing kingdoms
of Europe. But whereas you shall see many discontents, common
grievances, complaints, poverty, barbarism, beggary, plagues, wars,
rebellions, seditions, mutinies, contentions, idleness, riot,
epicurism, the land lie untilled, waste, full of bogs, fens, deserts,
&c., cities decayed, base and poor towns, villages depopulated, the
people squalid, ugly, uncivil; that kingdom, that country, must needs
be discontent, melancholy, hath a sick body, and had need to be
reformed.
Now that cannot well be effected, till the causes of these maladies be
first removed, which commonly proceed from their own default, or some
accidental inconvenience: as to be situated in a bad clime, too far
north, sterile, in a barren place, as the desert of Libya, deserts of
Arabia, places void of waters, as those of Lop and Belgian in Asia, or
in a bad air, as at Alexandretta, Bantam, Pisa, Durrazzo, S. John de
Ulloa, &c., or in danger of the sea's continual inundations, as in many
places of the Low Countries and elsewhere, or near some bad neighbours,
as Hungarians to Turks, Podolians to Tartars, or almost any bordering
countries, they live in fear still, and by reason of hostile incursions
are oftentimes left desolate. So are cities by reason [474]of wars,
fires, plagues, inundations, [475]wild beasts, decay of trades, barred
havens, the sea's violence, as Antwerp may witness of late, Syracuse of
old, Brundusium in Italy, Rye and Dover with us, and many that at this
day suspect the sea's fury and rage, and labour against it as the
Venetians to their inestimable charge. But the most frequent maladies
are such as proceed from themselves, as first when religion and God's
service is neglected, innovated or altered, where they do not fear God,
obey their prince, where atheism, epicurism, sacrilege, simony, &c.,
and all such impieties are freely committed, that country cannot
prosper. When Abraham came to Gerar, and saw a bad land, he said, sure
the fear of God was not in that place. [476] Cyprian Echovius, a
Spanish chorographer, above all other cities of Spain, commends
Borcino, in which there was no beggar, no man poor, &c., but all rich,
and in good estate, and he gives the reason, because they were more
religious than, their neighbours: why was Israel so often spoiled by
their enemies, led into captivity, &c., but for their idolatry, neglect
of God's word, for sacrilege, even for one Achan's fault? And what
shall we except that have such multitudes of Achans, church robbers,
simoniacal patrons, &c., how can they hope to flourish, that neglect
divine duties, that live most part like Epicures?
Other common grievances are generally noxious to a body politic;
alteration of laws and customs, breaking privileges, general
oppressions, seditions, &c., observed by [477]Aristotle, Bodin,
Boterus, Junius, Arniscus, &c. I will only point at some of chiefest.
[478]Impotentia gubernandi, ataxia, confusion, ill government, which
proceeds from unskilful, slothful, griping, covetous, unjust, rash, or
tyrannizing magistrates, when they are fools, idiots, children, proud,
wilful, partial, indiscreet, oppressors, giddy heads, tyrants, not able
or unfit to manage such offices: [479]many noble cities and flourishing
kingdoms by that means are desolate, the whole body groans under such
heads, and all the members must needs be disaffected, as at this day
those goodly provinces in Asia Minor, &c. groan under the burthen of a
Turkish government; and those vast kingdoms of Muscovia, Russia,
[480]under a tyrannizing duke. Who ever heard of more civil and rich
populous countries than those of Greece, Asia Minor, abounding with all
[481]wealth, multitudes of inhabitants, force, power, splendour and
magnificence? and that miracle of countries, [482]the Holy Land, that
in so small a compass of ground could maintain so many towns, cities,
produce so many fighting men? Egypt another paradise, now barbarous and
desert, and almost waste, by the despotical government of an imperious
Turk, intolerabili servitutis jugo premitur ([483]one saith) not only
fire and water, goods or lands, sed ipse spiritus ab insolentissimi
victoris pendet nutu, such is their slavery, their lives and souls
depend upon his insolent will and command. A tyrant that spoils all
wheresoever he comes, insomuch that an [484]historian complains, if an
old inhabitant should now see them, he would not know them, if a
traveller, or stranger, it would grieve his heart to behold them.
Whereas [485]Aristotle notes, Novae exactiones, nova onera imposita,
new burdens and exactions daily come upon them, like those of which
Zosimus, lib. 2, so grievous, ut viri uxores, patres filios
prostituerent ut exactoribus e questu, &c., they must needs be
discontent, hinc civitatum gemitus et ploratus, as [486] Tully holds,
hence come those complaints and tears of cities, poor, miserable,
rebellious, and desperate subjects, as [487]Hippolitus adds; and
[488]as a judicious countryman of ours observed not long since, in a
survey of that great Duchy of Tuscany, the people lived much grieved
and discontent, as appeared by their manifold and manifest complainings
in that kind. That the state was like a sick body which had lately
taken physic, whose humours are not yet well settled, and weakened so
much by purging, that nothing was left but melancholy.
Whereas the princes and potentates are immoderate in lust, hypocrites,
epicures, of no religion, but in show: Quid hypocrisi fragilius? what
so brittle and unsure? what sooner subverts their estates than
wandering and raging lusts, on their subjects' wives, daughters? to say
no worse. That they should facem praeferre, lead the way to all
virtuous actions, are the ringleaders oftentimes of all mischief and
dissolute courses, and by that means their countries are plagued,
[489]and they themselves often ruined, banished, or murdered by
conspiracy of their subjects, as Sardanapalus was, Dionysius Junior,
Heliogabalus, Periander, Pisistratus, Tarquinius, Timocrates,
Childericus, Appius Claudius, Andronicus, Galeacius Sforza, Alexander
Medices, &c.
Whereas the princes or great men are malicious, envious, factious,
ambitious, emulators, they tear a commonwealth asunder, as so many
Guelfs and Gibelines disturb the quietness of it, [490]and with mutual
murders let it bleed to death; our histories are too full of such
barbarous inhumanities, and the miseries that issue from them.
Whereas they be like so many horseleeches, hungry, griping, corrupt,
[491] covetous, avaritice mancipia, ravenous as wolves, for as Tully
writes: qui praeest prodest, et qui pecudibus praeest, debet eorum
utilitati inservire: or such as prefer their private before the public
good. For as [492]he said long since, res privatae publicis semper
officere. Or whereas they be illiterate, ignorant, empirics in policy,
ubi deest facultas, [493]virtus (Aristot. pol. 5, cap. 8.) et scientia,
wise only by inheritance, and in authority by birthright, favour, or
for their wealth and titles; there must needs be a fault, [494]a great
defect: because as an [495]old philosopher affirms, such men are not
always fit. Of an infinite number, few alone are senators, and of those
few, fewer good, and of that small number of honest, good, and noble
men, few that are learned, wise, discreet and sufficient, able to
discharge such places, it must needs turn to the confusion of a state.
For as the [496]Princes are, so are the people; Qualis Rex, talis grex:
and which [497]Antigonus right well said of old, qui Macedonia regem
erudit, omnes etiam subditos erudit, he that teacheth the king of
Macedon, teacheth all his subjects, is a true saying still.
For Princes are the glass, the school, the book,
Where subjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look.
———Velocius et citius nos
Corrumpunt vitiorum exempla domestica, magnis
Cum subeant animos auctoribus.———[498]