concomitant, assisting, or sole causes many times of melancholy. [1466]
Galen reduceth defect and abundance to this head; others [1467]All that
is separated, or remains.
_Costiveness_.] In the first rank of these, I may well reckon up
costiveness, and keeping in of our ordinary excrements, which as it
often causeth other diseases, so this of melancholy in particular.
[1468]Celsus, lib. 1. cap. 3, saith, It produceth inflammation of the
head, dullness, cloudiness, headache, &c. Prosper Calenus, lib. de atra
bile, will have it distemper not the organ only, [1469]but the mind
itself by troubling of it: and sometimes it is a sole cause of madness,
as you may read in the first book of [1470]Skenkius's Medicinal
Observations. A young merchant going to Nordeling fair in Germany, for
ten days' space never went to stool; at his return he was
[1471]grievously melancholy, thinking that he was robbed, and would not
be persuaded but that all his money was gone; his friends thought he
had some philtrum given him, but Cnelius, a physician, being sent for,
found his [1472]costiveness alone to be the cause, and thereupon gave
him a clyster, by which he was speedily recovered. Trincavellius,
consult. 35. lib. 1, saith as much of a melancholy lawyer, to whom he
administered physic, and Rodericus a Fonseca, consult. 85. tom. 2,
[1473]of a patient of his, that for eight days was bound, and therefore
melancholy affected. Other retentions and evacuations there are, not
simply necessary, but at some times; as Fernelius accounts them, Path.
lib. 1. cap. 15, as suppression of haemorrhoids, monthly issues in
women, bleeding at nose, immoderate or no use at all of Venus: or any
other ordinary issues.
[1474]Detention of haemorrhoids, or monthly issues, Villanovanus
Breviar. lib. 1. cap. 18. Arculanus, cap. 16. in 9. Rhasis, Vittorius
Faventinus, pract. mag. tract. 2. cap. 15. Bruel, &c. put for ordinary
causes. Fuchsius, l. 2. sect. 5. c. 30, goes farther, and saith,
[1475]That many men unseasonably cured of the haemorrhoids have been
corrupted with melancholy, seeking to avoid Scylla, they fall into
Charybdis. Galen, l. de hum. commen. 3. ad text. 26, illustrates this
by an example of Lucius Martius, whom he cured of madness, contracted
by this means: And [1476] Skenkius hath two other instances of two
melancholy and mad women, so caused from the suppression of their
months. The same may be said of bleeding at the nose, if it be suddenly
stopped, and have been formerly used, as [1477]Villanovanus urgeth: And
[1478]Fuchsius, lib. 2. sect. 5. cap. 33, stiffly maintains, That
without great danger, such an issue may not be stayed.
Venus omitted produceth like effects. Mathiolus, epist. 5. l. penult.,
[1479]avoucheth of his knowledge, that some through bashfulness
abstained from venery, and thereupon became very heavy and dull; and
some others that were very timorous, melancholy, and beyond all measure
sad. Oribasius, med. collect. l. 6. c. 37, speaks of some, [1480]That
if they do not use carnal copulation, are continually troubled with
heaviness and headache; and some in the same case by intermission of
it. Not use of it hurts many, Arculanus, c. 6. in 9. Rhasis, et
Magninus, part. 3. cap. 5, think, because it [1481]sends up poisoned
vapours to the brain and heart. And so doth Galen himself hold, That if
this natural seed be over-long kept (in some parties) it turns to
poison. Hieronymus Mercurialis, in his chapter of melancholy, cites it
for an especial cause of this malady, [1482]priapismus, satyriasis, &c.
Haliabbas, 5. Theor. c. 36, reckons up this and many other diseases.
Villanovanus Breviar. l. 1. c. 18, saith, He knew [1483]many monks and
widows grievously troubled with melancholy, and that from this sole
cause. [1484]Ludovicus Mercatus, l. 2. de mulierum affect. cap. 4, and
Rodericus a Castro, de morbis mulier. l. 2. c. 3, treat largely of this
subject, and will have it produce a peculiar kind of melancholy in
stale maids, nuns, and widows, Ob suppressionem mensium et venerem
omissam, timidae, moestae anxiae, verecundae, suspicioscae, languentes,
consilii inopes, cum summa vitae et rerum meliorum desperatione, &c.,
they are melancholy in the highest degree, and all for want of
husbands. Aelianus Montaltus, cap. 37. de melanchol., confirms as much
out of Galen; so doth Wierus, Christophorus a Vega de art. med. lib. 3.
c. 14, relates many such examples of men and women, that he had seen so
melancholy. Felix Plater in the first book of his Observations,
[1485]tells a story of an ancient gentleman in Alsatia, that married a
young wife, and was not able to pay his debts in that kind for a long
time together, by reason of his several infirmities: but she, because
of this inhibition of Venus, fell into a horrible fury, and desired
every one that came to see her, by words, looks, and gestures, to have
to do with her, &c. [1486]Bernardus Paternus, a physician, saith, He
knew a good honest godly priest, that because he would neither
willingly marry, nor make use of the stews, fell into grievous
melancholy fits. Hildesheim, spicel. 2, hath such another example of an
Italian melancholy priest, in a consultation had _Anno_ 1580. Jason
Pratensis gives instance in a married man, that from his wife's death
abstaining, [1487]after marriage, became exceedingly melancholy,
Rodericus a Fonseca in a young man so misaffected, Tom. 2. consult. 85.
To these you may add, if you please, that conceited tale of a Jew, so
visited in like sort, and so cured, out of Poggius Florentinus.
Intemperate Venus is all but as bad in the other extreme. Galen, l. 6.
de mortis popular. sect. 5. text. 26, reckons up melancholy amongst
those diseases which are [1488]exasperated by venery: so doth Avicenna,
2, 3, c. 11. Oribasius, loc. citat. Ficinus, lib. 2. de sanitate
tuenda. Marsilius Cognatus, Montaltus, cap. 27. Guianerius, Tract. 3.
cap. 2. Magninus, cap. 5. part. 3. [1489]gives the reason, because
[1490]it infrigidates and dries up the body, consumes the spirits; and
would therefore have all such as are cold and dry to take heed of and
to avoid it as a mortal enemy. Jacchinus in 9 Rhasis, cap. 15, ascribes
the same cause, and instanceth in a patient of his, that married a
young wife in a hot summer, [1491]and so dried himself with
chamber-work, that he became in short space from melancholy, mad: he
cured him by moistening remedies. The like example I find in Laelius a
Fonte Eugubinus, consult. 129, of a gentleman of Venice, that upon the
same occasion was first melancholy, afterwards mad. Read in him the
story at large.
Any other evacuation stopped will cause it, as well as these above
named, be it bile, [1492]ulcer, issue, &c. Hercules de Saxonia, lib. 1.
c. 16, and Gordonius, verify this out of their experience. They saw one
wounded in the head who as long as the sore was open, Lucida habuit
mentis intervalla, was well; but when it was stopped, Rediit
melancholia, his melancholy fit seized on him again.
Artificial evacuations are much like in effect, as hot houses, baths,
bloodletting, purging, unseasonably and immoderately used. [1493]Baths
dry too much, if used in excess, be they natural or artificial, and
offend extreme hot, or cold; [1494]one dries, the other refrigerates
overmuch. Montanus, consil. 137, saith, they overheat the liver. Joh.
Struthius, Stigmat. artis. l. 4. c. 9, contends, [1495]that if one stay
longer than ordinary at the bath, go in too oft, or at unseasonable
times, he putrefies the humours in his body. To this purpose writes
Magninus, l. 3. c. 5. Guianerius, Tract. 15. c. 21, utterly disallows
all hot baths in melancholy adust. [1496]I saw (saith he) a man that
laboured of the gout, who to be freed of this malady came to the bath,
and was instantly cured of his disease, but got another worse, and that
was madness. But this judgment varies as the humour doth, in hot or
cold: baths may be good for one melancholy man, bad for another; that
which will cure it in this party, may cause it in a second.
_Phlebotomy_.] Phlebotomy, many times neglected, may do much harm to
the body, when there is a manifest redundance of bad humours, and
melancholy blood; and when these humours heat and boil, if this be not
used in time, the parties affected, so inflamed, are in great danger to
be mad; but if it be unadvisedly, importunely, immoderately used, it
doth as much harm by refrigerating the body, dulling the spirits, and
consuming them: as Joh. [1497]Curio in his 10th chapter well
reprehends, such kind of letting blood doth more hurt than good:
[1498]The humours rage much more than they did before, and is so far
from avoiding melancholy, that it increaseth it, and weakeneth the
sight. [1499]Prosper Calenus observes as much of all phlebotomy, except
they keep a very good diet after it; yea, and as [1500]Leonartis
Jacchinus speaks out of his own experience, [1501]The blood is much
blacker to many men after their letting of blood than it was at first.
For this cause belike Salust. Salvinianus, l. 2. c. 1, will admit or
hear of no bloodletting at all in this disease, except it be manifest
it proceed from blood: he was (it appears) by his own words in that
place, master of an hospital of mad men, [1502]and found by long
experience, that this kind of evacuation, either in head, arm, or any
other part, did more harm than good. To this opinion of his,
[1503]Felix Plater is quite opposite, though some wink at, disallow and
quite contradict all phlebotomy in melancholy, yet by long experience I
have found innumerable so saved, after they had been twenty, nay, sixty
times let blood, and to live happily after it. It was an ordinary thing
of old, in Galen's time, to take at once from such men six pounds of
blood, which now we dare scarce take in ounces: sed viderint medici;
great books are written of this subject.
Purging upward and downward, in abundance of bad humours omitted, may
be for the worst; so likewise as in the precedent, if overmuch, too
frequent or violent, it [1504]weakeneth their strength, saith Fuchsius,
l. 2. sect., 2 c. 17, or if they be strong or able to endure physic,
yet it brings them to an ill habit, they make their bodies no better
than apothecaries' shops, this and such like infirmities must needs
follow.
SUBSECT. V.—_Bad Air, a cause of Melancholy_.
Air is a cause of great moment, in producing this, or any other
disease, being that it is still taken into our bodies by respiration,
and our more inner parts. [1505]If it be impure and foggy, it dejects
the spirits, and causeth diseases by infection of the heart, as Paulus
hath it, lib. 1. c. 49. Avicenna, lib. 1. Gal. de san. tuenda.
Mercurialis, Montaltus, &c. [1506]Fernelius saith, A thick air
thickeneth the blood and humours. [1507]Lemnius reckons up two main
things most profitable, and most pernicious to our bodies; air and
diet: and this peculiar disease, nothing sooner causeth [1508](Jobertus
holds) than the air wherein we breathe and live. [1509]Such as is the
air, such be our spirits; and as our spirits, such are our humours. It
offends commonly if it be too [1510]hot and dry, thick, fuliginous,
cloudy, blustering, or a tempestuous air. Bodine in his fifth Book, De
repub. cap. 1, 5, of his Method of History, proves that hot countries
are most troubled with melancholy, and that there are therefore in
Spain, Africa, and Asia Minor, great numbers of mad men, insomuch that
they are compelled in all cities of note, to build peculiar hospitals
for them. Leo [1511]Afer, lib. 3. de Fessa urbe, Ortelius and Zuinger,
confirm as much: they are ordinarily so choleric in their speeches,
that scarce two words pass without railing or chiding in common talk,
and often quarrelling in their streets. [1512]Gordonius will have every
man take notice of it: Note this (saith he) that in hot countries it is
far more familiar than in cold. Although this we have now said be not
continually so, for as [1513]Acosta truly saith, under the Equator
itself, is a most temperate habitation, wholesome air, a paradise of
pleasure: the leaves ever green, cooling showers. But it holds in such
as are intemperately hot, as [1514]Johannes a Meggen found in Cyprus,
others in Malta, Aupulia, and the [1515]Holy Land, where at some
seasons of the year is nothing but dust, their rivers dried up, the air
scorching hot, and earth inflamed; insomuch that many pilgrims going
barefoot for devotion sake, from Joppa to Jerusalem upon the hot sands,
often run mad, or else quite overwhelmed with sand, profundis arenis,
as in many parts of Africa, Arabia Deserta, Bactriana, now Charassan,
when the west wind blows [1516]Involuti arenis transeuntes necantur.
[1517]Hercules de Saxonia, a professor in Venice, gives this cause why
so many Venetian women are melancholy, Quod diu sub sole degant, they
tarry too long in the sun. Montanus, consil. 21, amongst other causes
assigns this; Why that Jew his patient was mad, Quod tam multum
exposuit se calori et frigori: he exposed himself so much to heat and
cold, and for that reason in Venice, there is little stirring in those
brick paved streets in summer about noon, they are most part then
asleep: as they are likewise in the great Mogol's countries, and all
over the East Indies. At Aden in Arabia, as [1518] Lodovicus
Vertomannus relates in his travels, they keep their markets in the
night, to avoid extremity of heat; and in Ormus, like cattle in a
pasture, people of all sorts lie up to the chin in water all day long.
At Braga in Portugal; Burgos in Castile; Messina in Sicily, all over
Spain and Italy, their streets are most part narrow, to avoid the
sunbeams. The Turks wear great turbans ad fugandos solis radios, to
refract the sunbeams; and much inconvenience that hot air of Bantam in
Java yields to our men, that sojourn there for traffic; where it is so
hot, [1519]that they that are sick of the pox, lie commonly bleaching
in the sun, to dry up their sores. Such a complaint I read of those
isles of Cape Verde, fourteen degrees from the Equator, they do male
audire: [1520]One calls them the unhealthiest clime of the world, for
fluxes, fevers, frenzies, calentures, which commonly seize on seafaring
men that touch at them, and all by reason of a hot distemperature of
the air. The hardiest men are offended with this heat, and stiffest
clowns cannot resist it, as Constantine affirms, Agricult. l. 2. c. 45.
They that are naturally born in such air, may not [1521]endure it, as
Niger records of some part of Mesopotamia, now called Diarbecha:
Quibusdam in locis saevienti aestui adeo subjecta est, ut pleraque
animalia fervore solis et coeli extinguantur, 'tis so hot there in some
places, that men of the country and cattle are killed with it; and
[1522]Adricomius of Arabia Felix, by reason of myrrh, frankincense, and
hot spices there growing, the air is so obnoxious to their brains, that
the very inhabitants at some times cannot abide it, much less weaklings
and strangers. [1523]Amatus Lusitanus, cent. 1. curat. 45, reports of a
young maid, that was one Vincent a currier's daughter, some thirteen
years of age, that would wash her hair in the heat of the day (in July)
and so let it dry in the sun, [1524]to make it yellow, but by that
means tarrying too long in the heat, she inflamed her head, and made
herself mad.
Cold air in the other extreme is almost as bad as hot, and so doth
Montaltus esteem of it, c. 11, if it be dry withal. In those northern
countries, the people are therefore generally dull, heavy, and many
witches, which (as I have before quoted) Saxo Grammaticus, Olaus,
Baptista Porta ascribe to melancholy. But these cold climes are more
subject to natural melancholy (not this artificial) which is cold and
dry: for which cause [1525]Mercurius Britannicus belike puts melancholy
men to inhabit just under the Pole. The worst of the three is a
[1526]thick, cloudy, misty, foggy air, or such as come from fens,
moorish grounds, lakes, muck-hills, draughts, sinks, where any
carcasses, or carrion lies, or from whence any stinking fulsome smell
comes: Galen, Avicenna, Mercurialis, new and old physicians, hold that
such air is unwholesome, and engenders melancholy, plagues, and what
not? [1527]Alexandretta, an haven-town in the Mediterranean Sea, Saint
John de Ulloa, an haven in Nova-Hispania, are much condemned for a bad
air, so are Durazzo in Albania, Lithuania, Ditmarsh, Pomptinae Paludes
in Italy, the territories about Pisa, Ferrara, &c. Romney Marsh with
us; the Hundreds in Essex, the fens in Lincolnshire. Cardan, de rerum
varietate, l. 17, c. 96, finds fault with the sight of those rich, and
most populous cities in the Low Countries, as Bruges, Ghent, Amsterdam,
Leiden, Utrecht, &c. the air is bad; and so at Stockholm in Sweden;
Regium in Italy, Salisbury with us, Hull and Lynn: they may be
commodious for navigation, this new kind of fortification, and many
other good necessary uses; but are they so wholesome? Old Rome hath
descended from the hills to the valley, 'tis the site of most of our
new cities, and held best to build in plains, to take the opportunity
of rivers. Leander Albertus pleads hard for the air and site of Venice,
though the black moorish lands appear at every low water: the sea,
fire, and smoke (as he thinks) qualify the air; and [1528]some suppose,
that a thick foggy air helps the memory, as in them of Pisa in Italy;
and our Camden, out of Plato, commends the site of Cambridge, because
it is so near the fens. But let the site of such places be as it may,
how can they be excused that have a delicious seat, a pleasant air, and
all that nature can afford, and yet through their own nastiness, and
sluttishness, immund and sordid manner of life, suffer their air to
putrefy, and themselves to be chocked up? Many cities in Turkey do male
audire in this kind: Constantinople itself, where commonly carrion lies
in the street. Some find the same fault in Spain, even in Madrid, the
king's seat, a most excellent air, a pleasant site; but the inhabitants
are slovens, and the streets uncleanly kept.
A troublesome tempestuous air is as bad as impure, rough and foul
weather, impetuous winds, cloudy dark days, as it is commonly with us,
Coelum visu foedum, [1529]Polydore calls it a filthy sky, et in quo
facile generantur nubes; as Tully's brother Quintus wrote to him in
Rome, being then quaestor in Britain. In a thick and cloudy air (saith
Lemnius) men are tetric, sad, and peevish: And if the western winds
blow, and that there be a calm, or a fair sunshine day, there is a kind
of alacrity in men's minds; it cheers up men and beasts: but if it be a
turbulent, rough, cloudy, stormy weather, men are sad, lumpish, and
much dejected, angry, waspish, dull, and melancholy. This was
[1530]Virgil's experiment of old,
Verum ubi tempestas, et coeli mobilis humor
Mutavere vices, et Jupiter humidus Austro,
Vertuntur species animorum, et pectore motus
Concipiunt alios———
But when the face of Heaven changed is
To tempests, rain, from season fair:
Our minds are altered, and in our breasts
Forthwith some new conceits appear.
And who is not weather-wise against such and such conjunctions of
planets, moved in foul weather, dull and heavy in such tempestuous
seasons? [1531] Gelidum contristat Aquarius annum: the time requires,
and the autumn breeds it; winter is like unto it, ugly, foul, squalid,
the air works on all men, more or less, but especially on such as are
melancholy, or inclined to it, as Lemnius holds, [1532]They are most
moved with it, and those which are already mad, rave downright, either
in, or against a tempest. Besides, the devil many times takes his
opportunity of such storms, and when the humours by the air be stirred,
he goes in with them, exagitates our spirits, and vexeth our souls; as
the sea waves, so are the spirits and humours in our bodies tossed with
tempestuous winds and storms. To such as are melancholy therefore,
Montanus, consil. 24, will have tempestuous and rough air to be
avoided, and consil. 27, all night air, and would not have them to walk
abroad, but in a pleasant day. Lemnius, l. 3. c. 3, discommends the
south and eastern winds, commends the north. Montanus, consil. 31.
[1533]Will not any windows to be opened in the night. Consil. 229. et
consil. 230, he discommends especially the south wind, and nocturnal
air: So doth [1534]Plutarch. The night and darkness makes men sad, the
like do all subterranean vaults, dark houses in caves and rocks, desert
places cause melancholy in an instant, especially such as have not been
used to it, or otherwise accustomed. Read more of air in Hippocrates,
Aetius, l. 3. a c. 171. ad 175. Oribasius, a c. 1. ad 21. Avicen. l. 1.
can. Fen. 2. doc. 2. Fen. 1. c. 123 to the 12, &c.
SUBSECT. VI.—_Immoderate Exercise a cause, and how. Solitariness,
Idleness_.
Nothing so good but it may be abused: nothing better than exercise (if
opportunely used) for the preservation of the body: nothing so bad if
it be unseasonable. violent, or overmuch. Fernelius out of Galen, Path.
lib. 1. c. 16, saith, [1535]That much exercise and weariness consumes
the spirits and substance, refrigerates the body; and such humours
which Nature would have otherwise concocted and expelled, it stirs up
and makes them rage: which being so enraged, diversely affect and
trouble the body and mind. So doth it, if it be unseasonably used, upon
a full stomach, or when the body is full of crudities, which Fuchsius
so much inveighs against, lib. 2. instit. sec. 2. c. 4, giving that for
a cause, why schoolboys in Germany are so often scabbed, because they
use exercise presently after meats. [1536]Bayerus puts in a caveat
against such exercise, because it [1537]corrupts the meat in the
stomach, and carries the same juice raw, and as yet undigested, into
the veins (saith Lemnius), which there putrefies and confounds the
animal spirits. Crato, consil. 21. l. 2, [1538]protests against all
such exercise after meat, as being the greatest enemy to concoction
that may be, and cause of corruption of humours, which produce this,
and many other diseases. Not without good reason then doth Salust.
Salvianus, l. 2. c. 1, and Leonartus Jacchinus, in 9. Rhasis,
Mercurialis, Arcubanus, and many other, set down [1539]immoderate
exercise as a most forcible cause of melancholy.
Opposite to exercise is idleness (the badge of gentry) or want of
exercise, the bane of body and mind, the nurse of naughtiness,
stepmother of discipline, the chief author of all mischief, one of the
seven deadly sins, and a sole cause of this and many other maladies,
the devil's cushion, as [1540]Gualter calls it, his pillow and chief
reposal. For the mind can never rest, but still meditates on one thing
or other, except it be occupied about some honest business, of his own
accord it rusheth into melancholy. [1541]As too much and violent
exercise offends on the one side, so doth an idle life on the other
(saith Crato), it fills the body full of phlegm, gross humours, and all
manner of obstructions, rheums, catarrhs, &c. Rhasis, cont. lib. 1.
tract. 9, accounts of it as the greatest cause of melancholy. [1542]I
have often seen (saith he) that idleness begets this humour more than
anything else. Montaltus, c. 1, seconds him out of his experience,
[1543]They that are idle are far more subject to melancholy than such
as are conversant or employed about any office or business.
[1544]Plutarch reckons up idleness for a sole cause of the sickness of
the soul: There are they (saith he) troubled in mind, that have no
other cause but this. Homer, Iliad. 1, brings in Achilles eating of his
own heart in his idleness, because he might not fight. Mercurialis,
consil. 86, for a melancholy young man urgeth, [1545]it as a chief
cause; why was he melancholy? because idle. Nothing begets it sooner,
increaseth and continueth it oftener than idleness.[1546]A disease
familiar to all idle persons, an inseparable companion to such as live
at ease, Pingui otio desidiose agentes, a life out of action, and have
no calling or ordinary employment to busy themselves about, that have
small occasions; and though they have, such is their laziness,
dullness, they will not compose themselves to do aught; they cannot
abide work, though it be necessary; easy as to dress themselves, write
a letter, or the like; yet as he that is benumbed with cold sits still
shaking, that might relieve himself with a little exercise or stirring,
do they complain, but will not use the facile and ready means to do
themselves good; and so are still tormented with melancholy. Especially
if they have been formerly brought up to business, or to keep much
company, and upon a sudden come to lead a sedentary life; it crucifies
their souls, and seizeth on them in an instant; for whilst they are any
ways employed, in action, discourse, about any business, sport or
recreation, or in company to their liking, they are very well; but if
alone or idle, tormented instantly again; one day's solitariness, one
hour's sometimes, doth them more harm, than a week's physic, labour,
and company can do good. Melancholy seizeth on them forthwith being
alone, and is such a torture, that as wise Seneca well saith, Malo mihi
male quam molliter esse, I had rather be sick than idle. This idleness
is either of body or mind. That of body is nothing but a kind of
benumbing laziness, intermitting exercise, which, if we may believe
[1547]Fernelius, causeth crudities, obstructions, excremental humours,
quencheth the natural heat, dulls the spirits, and makes them unapt to
do any thing whatsoever.
[1548]Neglectis urenda filix innascitur agris.
———for, a neglected field
Shall for the fire its thorns and thistles yield.
As fern grows in untilled grounds, and all manner of weeds, so do gross
humours in an idle body, Ignavum corrumpunt otia corpus. A horse in a
stable that never travels, a hawk in a mew that seldom flies, are both
subject to diseases; which left unto themselves, are most free from any
such encumbrances. An idle dog will be mangy, and how shall an idle
person think to escape? Idleness of the mind is much worse than this of
the body; wit without employment is a disease [1549]Aerugo animi,
rubigo ingenii: the rust of the soul, [1550]a plague, a hell itself,
Maximum animi nocumentum, Galen, calls it. [1551]As in a standing pool,
worms and filthy creepers increase, (et vitium capiunt ni moveantur
aquae, the water itself putrefies, and air likewise, if it be not
continually stirred by the wind) so do evil and corrupt thoughts in an
idle person, the soul is contaminated. In a commonwealth, where is no
public enemy, there is likely civil wars, and they rage upon
themselves: this body of ours, when it is idle, and knows not how to
bestow itself, macerates and vexeth itself with cares, griefs, false
fears, discontents, and suspicions; it tortures and preys upon his own
bowels, and is never at rest. Thus much I dare boldly say; he or she
that is idle, be they of what condition they will, never so rich, so
well allied, fortunate, happy, let them have all things in abundance
and felicity that heart can wish and desire, all contentment, so long
as he or she or they are idle, they shall never be pleased, never well
in body and mind, but weary still, sickly still, vexed still, loathing
still, weeping, sighing, grieving, suspecting, offended with the world,
with every object, wishing themselves gone or dead, or else earned away
with some foolish phantasy or other. And this is the true cause that so
many great men, ladies, and gentlewomen, labour of this disease in
country and city; for idleness is an appendix to nobility; they count
it a disgrace to work, and spend all their days in sports, recreations,
and pastimes, and will therefore take no pains; be of no vocation: they
feed liberally, fare well, want exercise, action, employment, (for to
work, I say, they may not abide,) and Company to their desires, and
thence their bodies become full of gross humours, wind, crudities;
their minds disquieted, dull, heavy, &c. care, jealousy, fear of some
diseases, sullen fits, weeping fits seize too [1552]familiarly on them.
For what will not fear and phantasy work in an idle body? what
distempers will they not cause? when the children of [1553] Israel
murmured against Pharaoh in Egypt, he commanded his officers to double
their task, and let them get straw themselves, and yet make their full
number of bricks; for the sole cause why they mutiny, and are evil at
ease, is, they are idle. When you shall hear and see so many
discontented persons in all places where you come, so many several
grievances, unnecessary complaints, fears, suspicions, [1554]the best
means to redress it is to set them awork, so to busy their minds; for
the truth is, they are idle. Well they may build castles in the air for
a time, and sooth up themselves with fantastical and pleasant humours,
but in the end they will prove as bitter as gall, they shall be still I
say discontent, suspicious, [1555]fearful, jealous, sad, fretting and
vexing of themselves; so long as they be idle, it is impossible to
please them, Otio qui nescit uti, plus habet negotii quam qui negotium
in negotio, as that [1556]Agellius could observe: He that knows not how
to spend his time, hath more business, care, grief, anguish of mind,
than he that is most busy in the midst of all his business. Otiosus
animus nescit quid volet: An idle person (as he follows it) knows not
when he is well, what he would have, or whither he would go, Quum illuc
ventum est, illinc lubet, he is tired out with everything, displeased
with all, weary of his life: Nec bene domi, nec militiae, neither at
home nor abroad, errat, et praeter vitam vivitur, he wanders and lives
besides himself. In a word, What the mischievous effects of laziness
and idleness are, I do not find any where more accurately expressed,
than in these verses of Philolaches in the [1557]Comical Poet, which
for their elegancy I will in part insert.
Novarum aedium esse arbitror similem ego hominem,
Quando hic natus est: Ei rei argumenta dicam.
Aedes quando sunt ad amussim expolitae,
Quisque laudat fabrum, atque exemplum expetit, &c.
At ubi illo migrat nequam homo indiligensque, &c.
Tempestas venit, confringit tegulas, imbricesque,
Putrifacit aer operam fabri, &c.
Dicam ut homines similes esse aedium arbitremini,
Fabri parentes fundamentum substruunt liberorum,
Expoliunt, docent literas, nec parcunt sumptui,
Ego autem sub fabrorum potestate frugi fui,
Postquam autem migravi in ingenium meum,
Perdidi operam fabrorum illico oppido,
Venit ignavia, ea mihi tempestas fuit,
Adventuque suo grandinem et imbrem attulit,
Illa mihi virtutem deturbavit, &c.