a treatise, [646]or performs any noble exploit, at home or abroad,
[647] shall be accordingly enriched, [648]honoured, and preferred. I
say with Hannibal in Ennius, Hostem qui feriet erit mihi
Carthaginensis, let him be of what condition he will, in all offices,
actions, he that deserves best shall have best.
Tilianus in Philonius, out of a charitable mind no doubt, wished all
his books were gold and silver, jewels and precious stones, [649]to
redeem captives, set free prisoners, and relieve all poor distressed
souls that wanted means; religiously done. I deny not, but to what
purpose? Suppose this were so well done, within a little after, though
a man had Croesus' wealth to bestow, there would be as many more.
Wherefore I will suffer no [650]beggars, rogues, vagabonds, or idle
persons at all, that cannot give an account of their lives how they
[651]maintain themselves. If they be impotent, lame, blind, and single,
they shall be sufficiently maintained in several hospitals, built for
that purpose; if married and infirm, past work, or by inevitable loss,
or some such like misfortune cast behind, by distribution of [652]corn,
house-rent free, annual pensions or money, they shall be relieved, and
highly rewarded for their good service they have formerly done; if
able, they shall be enforced to work. [653]For I see no reason (as
[654]he said) why an epicure or idle drone, a rich glutton, a usurer,
should live at ease, and do nothing, live in honour, in all manner of
pleasures, and oppress others, when as in the meantime a poor labourer,
a smith, a carpenter, an husbandman that hath spent his time in
continual labour, as an ass to carry burdens, to do the commonwealth
good, and without whom we cannot live, shall be left in his old age to
beg or starve, and lead a miserable life worse than a jument. As
[655]all conditions shall be tied to their task, so none shall be
overtired, but have their set times of recreations and holidays,
indulgere genio, feasts and merry meetings, even to the meanest
artificer, or basest servant, once a week to sing or dance, (though not
all at once) or do whatsoever he shall please; like [656]that Saccarum
festum amongst the Persians, those Saturnals in Rome, as well as his
master. [657]If any be drunk, he shall drink no more wine or strong
drink in a twelvemonth after. A bankrupt shall be [658] Catademiatus in
Amphitheatro, publicly shamed, and he that cannot pay his debts, if by
riot or negligence he have been impoverished, shall be for a
twelvemonth imprisoned, if in that space his creditors be not
satisfied, [659]he shall be hanged. He [660]that commits sacrilege
shall lose his hands; he that bears false witness, or is of perjury
convicted, shall have his tongue cut out, except he redeem it with his
head. Murder, [661] adultery, shall be punished by death, [662]but not
theft, except it be some more grievous offence, or notorious offenders:
otherwise they shall be condemned to the galleys, mines, be his slaves
whom they have offended, during their lives. I hate all hereditary
slaves, and that duram Persarum legem as [663]Brisonius calls it; or as
[664]Ammianus, impendio formidatas et abominandas leges, per quas ob
noxam unius, omnis propinquitas perit hard law that wife and children,
friends and allies, should suffer for the father's offence.
No man shall marry until he [665]be 25, no woman till she be 20, [666]
nisi alitur dispensatum fuerit. If one [667]die, the other party shall
not marry till six months after; and because many families are
compelled to live niggardly, exhaust and undone by great dowers,
[668]none shall be given at all, or very little, and that by
supervisors rated, they that are foul shall have a greater portion; if
fair, none at all, or very little: [669]howsoever not to exceed such a
rate as those supervisors shall think fit. And when once they come to
those years, poverty shall hinder no man from marriage, or any other
respect, [670]but all shall be rather enforced than hindered,
[671]except they be [672]dismembered, or grievously deformed, infirm,
or visited with some enormous hereditary disease, in body or mind; in
such cases upon a great pain, or mulct, [673]man or woman shall not
marry, other order shall be taken for them to their content. If people
overabound, they shall be eased by [674]colonies.
[675]No man shall wear weapons in any city. The same attire shall be
kept, and that proper to several callings, by which they shall be
distinguished. [676]Luxus funerum shall be taken away, that
intempestive expense moderated, and many others. Brokers, takers of
pawns, biting usurers, I will not admit; yet because hic cum hominibus
non cum diis agitur, we converse here with men, not with gods, and for
the hardness of men's hearts I will tolerate some kind of usury.[677]If
we were honest, I confess, si probi essemus, we should have no use of
it, but being as it is, we must necessarily admit it. Howsoever most
divines contradict it, dicimus inficias, sed vox ea sola reperta est,
it must be winked at by politicians. And yet some great doctors approve
of it, Calvin, Bucer, Zanchius, P. Martyr, because by so many grand
lawyers, decrees of emperors, princes' statutes, customs of
commonwealths, churches' approbations it is permitted, &c. I will
therefore allow it. But to no private persons, nor to every man that
will, to orphans only, maids, widows, or such as by reason of their
age, sex, education, ignorance of trading, know not otherwise how to
employ it; and those so approved, not to let it out apart, but to bring
their money to a [678]common bank which shall be allowed in every city,
as in Genoa, Geneva, Nuremberg, Venice, at [679]5, 6, 7, not above 8
per centum, as the supervisors, or aerarii praefecti shall think fit.
[680]And as it shall not be lawful for each man to be an usurer that
will, so shall it not be lawful for all to take up money at use, not to
prodigals and spendthrifts, but to merchants, young tradesmen, such as
stand in need, or know honestly how to employ it, whose necessity,
cause and condition the said supervisors shall approve of.
I will have no private monopolies, to enrich one man, and beggar a
multitude, [681]multiplicity of offices, of supplying by deputies,
weights and measures, the same throughout, and those rectified by the
Primum mobile and sun's motion, threescore miles to a degree according
to observation, 1000 geometrical paces to a mile, five foot to a pace,
twelve inches to a foot, &c. and from measures known it is an easy
matter to rectify weights, &c. to cast up all, and resolve bodies by
algebra, stereometry. I hate wars if they be not ad populi salutem upon
urgent occasion, [682]odimus accipitrim, quia semper vivit in armis
[683] offensive wars, except the cause be very just, I will not allow
of. For I do highly magnify that saying of Hannibal to Scipio, in
[684]Livy, It had been a blessed thing for you and us, if God had given
that mind to our predecessors, that you had been content with Italy, we
with Africa. For neither Sicily nor Sardinia are worth such cost and
pains, so many fleets and armies, or so many famous Captains' lives.
Omnia prius tentanda, fair means shall first be tried. [685]Peragit
tranquilla potestas, Quod violenta nequit. I will have them proceed
with all moderation: but hear you, Fabius my general, not Minutius, nam
[686]qui Consilio nititur plus hostibus nocet, quam qui sini animi
ratione, viribus: And in such wars to abstain as much as is possible
from [687]depopulations, burning of towns, massacring of infants, &c.
For defensive wars, I will have forces still ready at a small warning,
by land and sea, a prepared navy, soldiers in procinctu, et quam
[688]Bonfinius apud Hungaros suos vult, virgam ferream, and money,
which is nerves belli, still in a readiness, and a sufficient revenue,
a third part as in old [689]Rome and Egypt, reserved for the
commonwealth; to avoid those heavy taxes and impositions, as well to
defray this charge of wars, as also all other public defalcations,
expenses, fees, pensions, reparations, chaste sports, feasts, donaries,
rewards, and entertainments. All things in this nature especially I
will have maturely done, and with great [690]deliberation: ne quid
[691] temere, ne quid remisse ac timide fiat; Sid quo feror hospes? To
prosecute the rest would require a volume. Manum de tabella, I have
been over tedious in this subject; I could have here willingly ranged,
but these straits wherein I am included will not permit.
From commonwealths and cities, I will descend to families, which have
as many corsives and molestations, as frequent discontents as the rest.
Great affinity there is betwixt a political and economical body; they
differ only in magnitude and proportion of business (so Scaliger
[692]writes) as they have both likely the same period, as [693]Bodin
and [694]Peucer hold, out of Plato, six or seven hundred years, so many
times they have the same means of their vexation and overthrows; as
namely, riot, a common ruin of both, riot in building, riot in profuse
spending, riot in apparel, &c. be it in what kind soever, it produceth
the same effects. A [695]chorographer of ours speaking obiter of
ancient families, why they are so frequent in the north, continue so
long, are so soon extinguished in the south, and so few, gives no other
reason but this, luxus omnia dissipavit, riot hath consumed all, fine
clothes and curious buildings came into this island, as he notes in his
annals, not so many years since; non sine dispendio hospitalitatis to
the decay of hospitality. Howbeit many times that word is mistaken, and
under the name of bounty and hospitality, is shrouded riot and
prodigality, and that which is commendable in itself well used, hath
been mistaken heretofore, is become by his abuse, the bane and utter
ruin of many a noble family. For some men live like the rich glutton,
consuming themselves and their substance by continual feasting and
invitations, with [696]Axilon in Homer, keep open house for all comers,
giving entertainment to such as visit them, [697]keeping a table beyond
their means, and a company of idle servants (though not so frequent as
of old) are blown up on a sudden; and as Actaeon was by his hounds,
devoured by their kinsmen, friends, and multitude of followers. [698]It
is a wonder that Paulus Jovius relates of our northern countries, what
an infinite deal of meat we consume on our tables; that I may truly
say, 'tis not bounty, not hospitality, as it is often abused, but riot
and excess, gluttony and prodigality; a mere vice; it brings in debt,
want, and beggary, hereditary diseases, consumes their fortunes, and
overthrows the good temperature of their bodies. To this I might here
well add their inordinate expense in building, those fantastical
houses, turrets, walks, parks, &c. gaming, excess of pleasure, and that
prodigious riot in apparel, by which means they are compelled to break
up house, and creep into holes. Sesellius in his commonwealth of
[699]France, gives three reasons why the French nobility were so
frequently bankrupts: First, because they had so many lawsuits and
contentions one upon another, which were tedious and costly; by which
means it came to pass, that commonly lawyers bought them out of their
possessions. A second cause was their riot, they lived beyond their
means, and were therefore swallowed up by merchants. (La Nove, a French
writer, yields five reasons of his countrymen's poverty, to the same
effect almost, and thinks verily if the gentry of France were divided
into ten parts, eight of them would be found much impaired, by sales,
mortgages, and debts, or wholly sunk in their estates.) The last was
immoderate excess in apparel, which consumed their revenues. How this
concerns and agrees with our present state, look you. But of this
elsewhere. As it is in a man's body, if either head, heart, stomach,
liver, spleen, or any one part be misaffected, all the rest suffer with
it: so is it with this economical body. If the head be naught, a
spendthrift, a drunkard, a whoremaster, a gamester, how shall the
family live at ease? [700]Ipsa si cupiat solus servare, prorsus, non
potest hanc familiam, as Demea said in the comedy, Safety herself
cannot save it. A good, honest, painful man many times hath a shrew to
his wife, a sickly, dishonest, slothful, foolish, careless woman to his
mate, a proud, peevish flirt, a liquorish, prodigal quean, and by that
means all goes to ruin: or if they differ in nature, he is thrifty, she
spends all, he wise, she sottish and soft; what agreement can there be?
what friendship? Like that of the thrush and swallow in Aesop, instead
of mutual love, kind compellations, whore and thief is heard, they
fling stools at one another's heads. [701]Quae intemperies vexat hanc
familiam? All enforced marriages commonly produce such effects, or if
on their behalves it be well, as to live and agree lovingly together,
they may have disobedient and unruly children, that take ill courses to
disquiet them, [702]their son is a thief, a spendthrift, their daughter
a whore; a step [703]mother, or a daughter-in-law distempers all;
[704]or else for want of means, many torturers arise, debts, dues,
fees, dowries, jointures, legacies to be paid, annuities issuing out,
by means of which, they have not wherewithal to maintain themselves in
that pomp as their predecessors have done, bring up or bestow their
children to their callings, to their birth and quality, [705]and will
not descend to their present fortunes. Oftentimes, too, to aggravate
the rest, concur many other inconveniences, unthankful friends, decayed
friends, bad neighbours, negligent servants [706]servi furaces,
Versipelles, callidi, occlusa sibi mille clavibus reserant, furtimque;
raptant, consumunt, liguriunt; casualties, taxes, mulcts, chargeable
offices, vain expenses, entertainments, loss of stock, enmities,
emulations, frequent invitations, losses, suretyship, sickness, death
of friends, and that which is the gulf of all, improvidence, ill
husbandry, disorder and confusion, by which means they are drenched on
a sudden in their estates, and at unawares precipitated insensibly into
an inextricable labyrinth of debts, cares, woes, want, grief,
discontent and melancholy itself.
I have done with families, and will now briefly run over some few sorts
and conditions of men. The most secure, happy, jovial, and merry in the
world's esteem are princes and great men, free from melancholy: but for
their cares, miseries, suspicions, jealousies, discontents, folly and
madness, I refer you to Xenophon's Tyrannus, where king Hieron
discourseth at large with Simonides the poet, of this subject. Of all
others they are most troubled with perpetual fears, anxieties,
insomuch, that as he said in [707]Valerius, if thou knewest with what
cares and miseries this robe were stuffed, thou wouldst not stoop to
take it up. Or put case they be secure and free from fears and
discontents, yet they are void [708]of reason too oft, and precipitate
in their actions, read all our histories, quos de stultis prodidere
stulti, Iliades, Aeneides, Annales, and what is the subject?
Stultorum regum, et populorum continet aestus.
The giddy tumults and the foolish rage
Of kings and people.
How mad they are, how furious, and upon small occasions, rash and
inconsiderate in their proceedings, how they dote, every page almost
will witness,
———delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi.
When doting monarchs urge
Unsound resolves, their subjects feel the scourge.
Next in place, next in miseries and discontents, in all manner of
hair-brain actions, are great men, procul a Jove, procul a fulmine, the
nearer the worse. If they live in court, they are up and down, ebb and
flow with their princes' favours, Ingenium vultu statque caditque suo,
now aloft, tomorrow down, as [709]Polybius describes them, like so many
casting counters, now of gold, tomorrow of silver, that vary in worth
as the computant will; now they stand for units, tomorrow for
thousands; now before all, and anon behind. Beside, they torment one
another with mutual factions, emulations: one is ambitious, another
enamoured, a third in debt, a prodigal, overruns his fortunes, a fourth
solicitous with cares, gets nothing, &c. But for these men's
discontents, anxieties, I refer you to Lucian's Tract, de mercede
conductis, [710]Aeneas Sylvius (libidinis et stultitiae servos, he
calls them), Agrippa, and many others.
Of philosophers and scholars priscae sapientiae dictatores, I have
already spoken in general terms, those superintendents of wit and
learning, men above men, those refined men, minions of the muses,
[711]———mentemque habere queis bonam
Et esse [712]corculis datum est.———
[713]These acute and subtle sophisters, so much honoured, have as much
need of hellebore as others.—[714]O medici mediam pertundite venam.
Read Lucian's Piscator, and tell how he esteemed them; Agrippa's Tract
of the vanity of Sciences; nay read their own works, their absurd
tenets, prodigious paradoxes, et risum teneatis amici? You shall find
that of Aristotle true, nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae,
they have a worm as well as others; you shall find a fantastical
strain, a fustian, a bombast, a vainglorious humour, an affected style,
&c., like a prominent thread in an uneven woven cloth, run parallel
throughout their works. And they that teach wisdom, patience, meekness,
are the veriest dizzards, harebrains, and most discontent. [715]In the
multitude of wisdom is grief, and he that increaseth wisdom, increaseth
sorrow. I need not quote mine author; they that laugh and contemn
others, condemn the world of folly, deserve to be mocked, are as
giddy-headed, and lie as open as any other. [716]Democritus, that
common flouter of folly, was ridiculous himself, barking Menippus,
scoffing Lucian, satirical Lucilius, Petronius, Varro, Persius, &c.,
may be censured with the rest, Loripedem rectus derideat, Aethiopem
albus. Bale, Erasmus, Hospinian, Vives, Kemnisius, explode as a vast
ocean of obs and sols, school divinity. [717]A labyrinth of intricable
questions, unprofitable contentions, incredibilem delirationem, one
calls it. If school divinity be so censured, subtilis [718]Scotus lima
veritatis, Occam irrefragabilis, cujus ingenium vetera omnia ingenia
subvertit, &c. Baconthrope, Dr. Resolutus, and Corculum Theolgiae,
Thomas himself, Doctor [719]Seraphicus, cui dictavit Angelus, &c. What
shall become of humanity? Ars stulta, what can she plead? what can her
followers say for themselves? Much learning, [720] cere-diminuit-brum,
hath cracked their sconce, and taken such root, that tribus Anticyris
caput insanabile, hellebore itself can do no good, nor that renowned
[721]lantern of Epictetus, by which if any man studied, he should be as
wise as he was. But all will not serve; rhetoricians, in ostentationem
loquacitatis multa agitant, out of their volubility of tongue, will
talk much to no purpose, orators can persuade other men what they will,
quo volunt, unde volunt, move, pacify, &c., but cannot settle their own
brains, what saith Tully? Malo indisertam prudentiam, quam loquacem,
stultitiam; and as [722]Seneca seconds him, a wise man's oration should
not be polite or solicitous. [723]Fabius esteems no better of most of
them, either in speech, action, gesture, than as men beside themselves,
insanos declamatores; so doth Gregory, Non mihi sapit qui sermone, sed
qui factis sapit. Make the best of him, a good orator is a turncoat, an
evil man, bonus orator pessimus vir, his tongue is set to sale, he is a
mere voice, as [724]he said of a nightingale, dat sine mente sonum, an
hyperbolical liar, a flatterer, a parasite, and as [725] Ammianus
Marcellinus will, a corrupting cozener, one that doth more mischief by
his fair speeches, than he that bribes by money; for a man may with
more facility avoid him that circumvents by money, than him that
deceives with glozing terms; which made [726]Socrates so much abhor and
explode them. [727]Fracastorius, a famous poet, freely grants all poets
to be mad; so doth [728]Scaliger; and who doth not? Aut insanit homo,
aut versus facit (He's mad or making verses), Hor. Sat. vii. l. 2.
Insanire lubet, i. versus componere. Virg. 3 Ecl.; so Servius
interprets it, all poets are mad, a company of bitter satirists,
detractors, or else parasitical applauders: and what is poetry itself,
but as Austin holds, Vinum erroris ab ebriis doctoribus propinatum? You
may give that censure of them in general, which Sir Thomas More once
did of Germanus Brixius' poems in particular.
———vehuntur
In rate stultitiae sylvam habitant Furiae.[729]
Budaeus, in an epistle of his to Lupsetus, will have civil law to be
the tower of wisdom; another honours physic, the quintessence of
nature; a third tumbles them both down, and sets up the flag of his own
peculiar science. Your supercilious critics, grammatical triflers,
note-makers, curious antiquaries, find out all the ruins of wit,
ineptiarum delicias, amongst the rubbish of old writers; [730]Pro
stultis habent nisi aliquid sufficiant invenire, quod in aliorum
scriptis vertant vitio, all fools with them that cannot find fault;
they correct others, and are hot in a cold cause, puzzle themselves to
find out how many streets in Rome, houses, gates, towers, Homer's
country, Aeneas's mother, Niobe's daughters, an Sappho publica fuerit?
ovum [731]prius extiterit an gallina! &c. et alia quae dediscenda
essent scire, si scires, as [732]Seneca holds. What clothes the
senators did wear in Rome, what shoes, how they sat, where they went to
the close-stool, how many dishes in a mess, what sauce, which for the
present for an historian to relate, [733]according to Lodovic. Vives,
is very ridiculous, is to them most precious elaborate stuff, they
admired for it, and as proud, as triumphant in the meantime for this
discovery, as if they had won a city, or conquered a province; as rich
as if they had found a mine of gold ore. Quosvis auctores absurdis
commentis suis percacant et stercorant, one saith, they bewray and daub
a company of books and good authors, with their absurd comments,
correctorum sterquilinia [734]Scaliger calls them, and show their wit
in censuring others, a company of foolish note-makers, humble-bees,
dors, or beetles, inter stercora ut plurimum versantur, they rake over
all those rubbish and dunghills, and prefer a manuscript many times
before the Gospel itself, [735]thesaurum criticum, before any treasure,
and with their deleaturs, alii legunt sic, meus codex sic habet, with
their postremae editiones, annotations, castigations, &c. make books
dear, themselves ridiculous, and do nobody good, yet if any man dare
oppose or contradict, they are mad, up in arms on a sudden, how many
sheets are written in defence, how bitter invectives, what apologies?
[736]Epiphilledes hae sunt ut merae, nugae. But I dare say no more of,
for, with, or against them, because I am liable to their lash as well
as others. Of these and the rest of our artists and philosophers, I
will generally conclude they are a kind of madmen, as [737] Seneca
esteems of them, to make doubts and scruples, how to read them truly,
to mend old authors, but will not mend their own lives, or teach us
ingevia sanare, memoriam officiorum ingerere, ac fidem in rebus humanis
retinere, to keep our wits in order, or rectify our manners. Numquid
tibi demens videtur, si istis operam impenderit? Is not he mad that
draws lines with Archimedes, whilst his house is ransacked, and his
city besieged, when the whole world is in combustion, or we whilst our
souls are in danger, (mors sequitur, vita fugit) to spend our time in
toys, idle questions, and things of no worth?
That [738]lovers are mad, I think no man will deny, Amare simul et
sapere, ipsi Jovi non datur, Jupiter himself cannot intend both at
once.
[739]Non bene conveniunt, nec in una sede morantur
Majestas et amor.
Tully, when he was invited to a second marriage, replied, he could not
simul amare et sapere be wise and love both together. [740]Est orcus
ille, vis est immedicabilis, est rabies insana, love is madness, a
hell, an incurable disease; inpotentem et insanam libidinem [741]Seneca
calls it, an impotent and raging lust. I shall dilate this subject
apart; in the meantime let lovers sigh out the rest.
[742]Nevisanus the lawyer holds it for an axiom, most women are fools,
[743]consilium foeminis invalidum; Seneca, men, be they young or old;
who doubts it, youth is mad as Elius in Tully, Stulti adolescentuli,
old age little better, deleri senes, &c. Theophrastes, in the 107th
year of his age, [744]said he then began to be to wise, tum sapere
coepit, and therefore lamented his departure. If wisdom come so late,
where shall we find a wise man? Our old ones dote at
threescore-and-ten. I would cite more proofs, and a better author, but
for the present, let one fool point at another. [745]Nevisanus hath as
hard an opinion of [746]rich men, wealth and wisdom cannot dwell
together, stultitiam patiuntur opes, [747]and they do commonly
[748]infatuare cor hominis, besot men; and as we see it, fools have
fortune: [749]Sapientia non invenitur in terra suaviter viventium. For
beside a natural contempt of learning, which accompanies such kind of
men, innate idleness (for they will take no pains), and which
[750]Aristotle observes, ubi mens plurima, ibi minima fortuna, ubi
plurima fortuna, ibi mens perexigua, great wealth and little wit go
commonly together: they have as much brains some of them in their heads
as in their heels; besides this inbred neglect of liberal sciences, and
all arts, which should excolere mentem, polish the mind, they have most
part some gullish humour or other, by which they are led; one is an
Epicure, an Atheist, a second a gamester, a third a whoremaster (fit
subjects all for a satirist to work upon);
[751]Hic nuptarum insanit amoribus, hic puerorum.
One burns to madness for the wedded dame;
Unnatural lusts another's heart inflame.
[752]one is mad of hawking, hunting, cocking; another of carousing,
horse-riding, spending; a fourth of building, fighting, &c., Insanit
veteres statuas Damasippus emendo, Damasippus hath an humour of his
own, to be talked of: [753]Heliodorus the Carthaginian another. In a
word, as Scaliger concludes of them all, they are Statuae erectae
stultitiae, the very statutes or pillars of folly. Choose out of all
stories him that hath been most admired, you shall still find, multa ad
laudem, multa ad vituperationem magnifica, as [754]Berosus of
Semiramis; omnes mortales militia triumphis, divitiis, &c., tum et
luxu, caede, caeterisque vitiis antecessit, as she had some good, so
had she many bad parts.
Alexander, a worthy man, but furious in his anger, overtaken in drink:
Caesar and Scipio valiant and wise, but vainglorious, ambitious:
Vespasian a worthy prince, but covetous: [755]Hannibal, as he had
mighty virtues, so had he many vices; unam virtutem mille vitia
comitantur, as Machiavel of Cosmo de Medici, he had two distinct
persons in him. I will determine of them all, they are like these
double or turning pictures; stand before which you see a fair maid, on
the one side an ape, on the other an owl; look upon them at the first
sight, all is well, but farther examine, you shall find them wise on
the one side, and fools on the other; in some few things praiseworthy,
in the rest incomparably faulty. I will say nothing of their diseases,
emulations, discontents, wants, and such miseries: let poverty plead
the rest in Aristophanes' Plutus.
Covetous men, amongst others, are most mad, [756]they have all the
symptoms of melancholy, fear, sadness, suspicion, &c., as shall be
proved in its proper place,
Danda est Hellebori multo pars maxima avaris.
Misers make Anticyra their own;
Its hellebore reserved for them alone.
And yet methinks prodigals are much madder than they, be of what
condition they will, that bear a public or private purse; as a
[757]Dutch writer censured Richard the rich duke of Cornwall, suing to
be emperor, for his profuse spending, qui effudit pecuniam, ante pedes
principium Electorum sicut aquam, that scattered money like water; I do
censure them, Stulta Anglia (saith he) quae, tot denariis sponte est
privata, stulti principes Alemaniae, qui nobile jus suum pro pecunia
vendiderunt; spendthrifts, bribers, and bribe-takers are fools, and so
are [758]all they that cannot keep, disburse, or spend their moneys
well.
I might say the like of angry, peevish, envious, ambitious; [759]
Anticyras melior sorbere meracas; Epicures, Atheists, Schismatics,
Heretics; hi omnes habent imaginationem laesam (saith Nymannus) and
their madness shall be evident, 2 Tim. iii. 9. [760]Fabatus, an
Italian, holds seafaring men all mad; the ship is mad, for it never
stands still; the mariners are mad, to expose themselves to such
imminent dangers: the waters are raging mad, in perpetual motion: the
winds are as mad as the rest, they know not whence they come, whither
they would go: and those men are maddest of all that go to sea; for one
fool at home, they find forty abroad. He was a madman that said it, and
thou peradventure as mad to read it. [761] Felix Platerus is of opinion
all alchemists are mad, out of their wits; [762]Atheneus saith as much
of fiddlers, et musarum luscinias, [763] Musicians, omnes tibicines
insaniunt, ubi semel efflant, avolat illico mens, in comes music at one
ear, out goes wit at another. Proud and vainglorious persons are
certainly mad; and so are [764]lascivious; I can feel their pulses beat
hither; horn-mad some of them, to let others lie with their wives, and
wink at it.
To insist [765]in all particulars, were an Herculean task, to
[766]reckon up [767]insanas substructiones, insanos labores, insanum
luxum, mad labours, mad books, endeavours, carriages, gross ignorance,
ridiculous actions, absurd gestures; insanam gulam, insaniam villarum,
insana jurgia, as Tully terms them, madness of villages, stupend
structures; as those Egyptian Pyramids, Labyrinths and Sphinxes, which
a company of crowned asses, ad ostentationem opum, vainly built, when
neither the architect nor king that made them, or to what use and
purpose, are yet known: to insist in their hypocrisy, inconstancy,
blindness, rashness, dementem temeritatem, fraud, cozenage, malice,
anger, impudence, ingratitude, ambition, gross superstition,
[768]tempora infecta et adulatione sordida, as in Tiberius' times, such
base flattery, stupend, parasitical fawning and colloguing, &c. brawls,
conflicts, desires, contentions, it would ask an expert Vesalius to
anatomise every member. Shall I say? Jupiter himself, Apollo, Mars, &c.
doted; and monster-conquering Hercules that subdued the world, and
helped others, could not relieve himself in this, but mad he was at
last. And where shall a man walk, converse with whom, in what province,
city, and not meet with Signior Deliro, or Hercules Furens, Maenads,
and Corybantes? Their speeches say no less. [769]E fungis nati homines,
or else they fetched their pedigree from those that were struck by
Samson with the jaw-bone of an ass. Or from Deucalion and Pyrrha's
stones, for durum genus sumus, [770] marmorei sumus, we are
stony-hearted, and savour too much of the stock, as if they had all
heard that enchanted horn of Astolpho, that English duke in Ariosto,
which never sounded but all his auditors were mad, and for fear ready
to make away with themselves; [771]or landed in the mad haven in the
Euxine sea of Daphnis insana, which had a secret quality to dementate;
they are a company of giddy-heads, afternoon men, it is Midsummer moon
still, and the dog-days last all the year long, they are all mad. Whom
shall I then except? Ulricus Huttenus [772]nemo, nam, nemo omnibus
horis sapit, Nemo nascitur sine vitiis, Crimine Nemo caret, Nemo sorte
sua vivit contentus, Nemo in amore sapit, Nemo bonus, Nemo sapiens,
Nemo, est ex omni parti beatus, &c. [773]and therefore Nicholas Nemo,
or Monsieur Nobody shall go free, Quid valeat nemo, Nemo referre
potest? But whom shall I except in the second place? such as are
silent, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur; [774]no better way to avoid folly
and madness, than by taciturnity. Whom in a third? all senators,
magistrates; for all fortunate men are wise, and conquerors valiant,
and so are all great men, non est bonum ludere cum diis, they are wise
by authority, good by their office and place, his licet impune pessimos
esse, (some say) we must not speak of them, neither is it fit; per me
sint omnia protinus alba, I will not think amiss of them. Whom next?
Stoics? Sapiens Stoicus, and he alone is subject to no perturbations,
as [775]Plutarch scoffs at him, he is not vexed with torments, or burnt
with fire, foiled by his adversary, sold of his enemy: though he be
wrinkled, sand-blind, toothless, and deformed; yet he is most
beautiful, and like a god, a king in conceit, though not worth a groat.
He never dotes, never mad, never sad, drunk, because virtue cannot be
taken away, as [776]Zeno holds, by reason of strong apprehension, but
he was mad to say so. [777]Anticyrae caelo huic est opus aut dolabra,
he had need to be bored, and so had all his fellows, as wise as they
would seem to be. Chrysippus himself liberally grants them to be fools
as well as others, at certain times, upon some occasions, amitti
virtutem ait per ebrietatem, aut atribilarium morbum, it may be lost by
drunkenness or melancholy, he may be sometimes crazed as well as the
rest: [778]ad summum sapiens nisi quum pituita molesta. I should here
except some Cynics, Menippus, Diogenes, that Theban Crates; or to
descend to these times, that omniscious, only wise fraternity [779]of
the Rosicrucians, those great theologues, politicians, philosophers,
physicians, philologers, artists, &c. of whom S. Bridget, Albas
Joacchimus, Leicenbergius, and such divine spirits have prophesied, and
made promise to the world, if at least there be any such (Hen.
[780]Neuhusius makes a doubt of it, [781] Valentinus Andreas and
others) or an Elias artifex their Theophrastian master; whom though
Libavius and many deride and carp at, yet some will have to be the
[782]renewer of all arts and sciences, reformer of the world, and now
living, for so Johannes Montanus Strigoniensis, that great patron of
Paracelsus, contends, and certainly avers [783]a most divine man, and
the quintessence of wisdom wheresoever he is; for he, his fraternity,
friends, &c. are all [784]betrothed to wisdom, if we may believe their
disciples and followers. I must needs except Lipsius and the Pope, and
expunge their name out of the catalogue of fools. For besides that
parasitical testimony of Dousa,
A Sole exoriente Maeotidas usque paludes,
Nemo est qui justo se aequiparare queat.[785]