discommends, magnificently built with fair houses, sed imprudenter
positam unadvisedly sited, because it lay along to the south, and when
the south wind blew, the people were all sick, would make an excellent
site in our northern climes.
Of that artificial site of houses I have sufficiently discoursed: if
the plan of the dwelling may not be altered, yet there is much in
choice of such a chamber or room, in opportune opening and shutting of
windows, excluding foreign air and winds, and walking abroad at
convenient times. [3182]Crato, a German, commends east and south site
(disallowing cold air and northern winds in this case, rainy weather
and misty days), free from putrefaction, fens, bogs, and muck—hills. If
the air be such, open no windows, come not abroad. Montanus will have
his patient not to [3183]stir at all, if the wind be big or
tempestuous, as most part in March it is with us; or in cloudy,
lowering, dark days, as in November, which we commonly call the black
month; or stormy, let the wind stand how it will, consil. 27. and 30.
he must not [3184]open a casement in bad weather, or in a boisterous
season, consil. 299, he especially forbids us to open windows to a
south wind. The best sites for chamber windows, in my judgment, are
north, east, south, and which is the worst, west. Levinus Lemnius, lib.
3. cap. 3. de occult. nat. mir. attributes so much to air, and
rectifying of wind and windows, that he holds it alone sufficient to
make a man sick or well; to alter body and mind. [3185]A clear air
cheers up the spirits, exhilarates the mind; a thick, black, misty,
tempestuous, contracts, overthrows. Great heed is therefore to be taken
at what times we walk, how we place our windows, lights, and houses,
how we let in or exclude this ambient air. The Egyptians, to avoid
immoderate heat, make their windows on the top of the house like
chimneys, with two tunnels to draw a thorough air. In Spain they
commonly make great opposite windows without glass, still shutting
those which are next to the sun: so likewise in Turkey and Italy
(Venice excepted, which brags of her stately glazed palaces) they use
paper windows to like purpose; and lie, sub dio, in the top of their
flat-roofed houses, so sleeping under the canopy of heaven. In some
parts of [3186]Italy they have windmills, to draw a cooling air out of
hollow caves, and disperse the same through all the chambers of their
palaces, to refresh them; as at Costoza, the house of Caesareo Trento,
a gentleman of Vicenza, and elsewhere. Many excellent means are
invented to correct nature by art. If none of these courses help, the
best way is to make artificial air, which howsoever is profitable and
good, still to be made hot and moist, and to be seasoned with sweet
perfumes, [3187]pleasant and lightsome as it may be; to have roses,
violets, and sweet-smelling flowers ever in their windows, posies in
their hand. Laurentius commends water-lilies, a vessel of warm water to
evaporate in the room, which will make a more delightful perfume, if
there be added orange-flowers, pills of citrons, rosemary, cloves,
bays, rosewater, rose-vinegar, benzoin, laudanum, styrax, and such like
gums, which make a pleasant and acceptable perfume. [3188]Bessardus
Bisantinus prefers the smoke of juniper to melancholy persons, which is
in great request with us at Oxford, to sweeten our chambers.
[3189]Guianerius prescribes the air to be moistened with water, and
sweet herbs boiled in it, vine, and sallow leaves, &c., [3190] to
besprinkle the ground and posts with rosewater, rose-vinegar, which
Avicenna much approves. Of colours it is good to behold green, red,
yellow, and white, and by all means to have light enough, with windows
in the day, wax candles in the night, neat chambers, good fires in
winter, merry companions; for though melancholy persons love to be dark
and alone, yet darkness is a great increaser of the humour.
Although our ordinary air be good by nature or art, yet it is not
amiss, as I have said, still to alter it; no better physic for a
melancholy man than change of air, and variety of places, to travel
abroad and see fashions. [3191]Leo Afer speaks of many of his
countrymen so cured, without all other physic: amongst the Negroes,
there is such an excellent air, that if any of them be sick elsewhere,
and brought thither, he is instantly recovered, of which he was often
an eyewitness. [3192]Lipsius, Zuinger, and some others, add as much of
ordinary travel. No man, saith Lipsius, in an epistle to Phil. Lanoius,
a noble friend of his, now ready to make a voyage, [3193]can be such a
stock or stone, whom that pleasant speculation of countries, cities,
towns, rivers, will not affect. [3194] Seneca the philosopher was
infinitely taken with the sight of Scipio Africanus' house, near
Linternum, to view those old buildings, cisterns, baths, tombs, &c. And
how was [3195]Tully pleased with the sight of Athens, to behold those
ancient and fair buildings, with a remembrance of their worthy
inhabitants. Paulus Aemilius, that renowned Roman captain, after he had
conquered Perseus, the last king of Macedonia, and now made an end of
his tedious wars, though he had been long absent from Rome, and much
there desired, about the beginning of autumn (as [3196]Livy describes
it) made a pleasant peregrination all over Greece, accompanied with his
son Scipio, and Atheneus the brother of king Eumenes, leaving the
charge of his army with Sulpicius Gallus. By Thessaly he went to
Delphos, thence to Megaris, Aulis, Athens, Argos, Lacedaemon,
Megalopolis, &c. He took great content, exceeding delight in that his
voyage, as who doth not that shall attempt the like, though his travel
be ad jactationem magis quam ad usum reipub. (as [3197]one well
observes) to crack, gaze, see fine sights and fashions, spend time,
rather than for his own or public good? (as it is to many gallants that
travel out their best days, together with their means, manners,
honesty, religion) yet it availeth howsoever. For peregrination charms
our senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety, [3198]that some
count him unhappy that never travelled, and pity his case, that from
his cradle to his old age beholds the same still; still, still the
same, the same. Insomuch that [3199]Rhasis, cont. lib. 1. Tract. 2.
doth not only commend, but enjoin travel, and such variety of objects
to a melancholy man, and to lie in diverse inns, to be drawn into
several companies: Montaltus, cap. 36. and many neoterics are of the
same mind: Celsus adviseth him therefore that will continue his health,
to have varium vitae genus, diversity of callings, occupations, to be
busied about, [3200] sometimes to live in the city, sometimes in the
country; now to study or work, to be intent, then again to hawk or
hunt, swim, run, ride, or exercise himself. A good prospect alone will
ease melancholy, as Comesius contends, lib. 2. c. 7. de Sale. The
citizens of [3201]Barcino, saith he, otherwise penned in, melancholy,
and stirring little abroad, are much delighted with that pleasant
prospect their city hath into the sea, which like that of old Athens
besides Aegina Salamina, and many pleasant islands, had all the variety
of delicious objects: so are those Neapolitans and inhabitants of
Genoa, to see the ships, boats, and passengers go by, out of their
windows, their whole cities being situated on the side of a hill, like
Pera by Constantinople, so that each house almost hath a free prospect
to the sea, as some part of London to the Thames: or to have a free
prospect all over the city at once, as at Granada in Spain, and Fez in
Africa, the river running betwixt two declining hills, the steepness
causeth each house almost, as well to oversee, as to be overseen of the
rest. Every country is full of such [3202]delightsome prospects, as
well within land, as by sea, as Hermon and [3203]Rama in Palestina,
Colalto in Italy, the top of Magetus, or Acrocorinthus, that old
decayed castle in Corinth, from which Peloponessus, Greece, the Ionian
and Aegean seas were semel et simul at one view to be taken. In Egypt
the square top of the great pyramid, three hundred yards in height, and
so the Sultan's palace in Grand Cairo, the country being plain, hath a
marvellous fair prospect as well over Nilus, as that great city, five
Italian miles long, and two broad, by the river side: from mount Sion
in Jerusalem, the Holy Land is of all sides to be seen: such high
places are infinite: with us those of the best note are Glastonbury
tower, Box Hill in Surrey, Bever castle, Rodway Grange, [3204]Walsby in
Lincolnshire, where I lately received a real kindness, by the
munificence of the right honourable my noble lady and patroness, the
Lady Frances, countess dowager of Exeter: and two amongst the rest,
which I may not omit for vicinity's sake, Oldbury in the confines of
Warwickshire, where I have often looked about me with great delight, at
the foot of which hill [3205]I was born: and Hanbury in Staffordshire,
contiguous to which is Falde, a pleasant village, and an ancient
patrimony belonging to our family, now in the possession of mine elder
brother, William Burton, Esquire. [3206]Barclay the Scot commends that
of Greenwich tower for one of the best prospects in Europe, to see
London on the one side, the Thames, ships, and pleasant meadows on the
other. There be those that say as much and more of St. Mark's steeple
in Venice. Yet these are at too great a distance: some are especially
affected with such objects as be near, to see passengers go by in some
great roadway, or boats in a river, in subjectum forum despicere, to
oversee a fair, a marketplace, or out of a pleasant window into some
thoroughfare street, to behold a continual concourse, a promiscuous
rout, coming and going, or a multitude of spectators at a theatre, a
mask, or some such like show. But I rove: the sum is this, that variety
of actions, objects, air, places, are excellent good in this infirmity,
and all others, good for man, good for beast. [3207]Constantine the
emperor, lib. 18. cap. 13. ex Leontio, holds it an only cure for rotten
sheep, and any manner of sick cattle. Laelius a Fonte Aegubinus, that
great doctor, at the latter end of many of his consultations (as
commonly he doth set down what success his physic had,) in melancholy
most especially approves of this above all other remedies whatsoever,
as appears consult. 69. consult. 229. &c. [3208]Many other things
helped, but change of air was that which wrought the cure, and did most
good.
MEMB. IV.
_Exercise rectified of Body and Mind_.
To that great inconvenience, which comes on the one side by immoderate
and unseasonable exercise, too much solitariness and idleness on the
other, must be opposed as an antidote, a moderate and seasonable use of
it, and that both of body and mind, as a most material circumstance,
much conducing to this cure, and to the general preservation of our
health. The heavens themselves run continually round, the sun riseth
and sets, the moon increaseth and decreaseth, stars and planets keep
their constant motions, the air is still tossed by the winds, the
waters ebb and flow to their conservation no doubt, to teach us that we
should ever be in action. For which cause Hieron prescribes Rusticus
the monk, that he be always occupied about some business or other,
[3209]that the devil do not find him idle. [3210]Seneca would have a
man do something, though it be to no purpose. [3211]Xenophon wisheth
one rather to play at tables, dice, or make a jester of himself (though
he might be far better employed) than do nothing. The [3212]Egyptians
of old, and many flourishing commonwealths since, have enjoined labour
and exercise to all sorts of men, to be of some vocation and calling,
and give an account of their time, to prevent those grievous mischiefs
that come by idleness: for as fodder, whip, and burthen belong to the
ass: so meat, correction, and work unto the servant, Ecclus. xxxiii.
23. The Turks enjoin all men whatsoever, of what degree, to be of some
trade or other, the Grand Signior himself is not excused. [3213]In our
memory (saith Sabellicus) Mahomet the Turk, he that conquered Greece,
at that very time when he heard ambassadors of other princes, did
either carve or cut wooden spoons, or frame something upon a table.
[3214]This present sultan makes notches for bows. The Jews are most
severe in this examination of time. All well-governed places, towns,
families, and every discreet person will be a law unto himself. But
amongst us the badge of gentry is idleness: to be of no calling, not to
labour, for that's derogatory to their birth, to be a mere spectator, a
drone, fruges consumere natus, to have no necessary employment to busy
himself about in church and commonwealth (some few governors exempted),
but to rise to eat, &c., to spend his days in hawking, hunting, &c.,
and such like disports and recreations ([3215]which our casuists tax),
are the sole exercise almost, and ordinary actions of our nobility, and
in which they are too immoderate. And thence it comes to pass, that in
city and country so many grievances of body and mind, and this feral
disease of melancholy so frequently rageth, and now domineers almost
all over Europe amongst our great ones. They know not how to spend
their time (disports excepted, which are all their business), what to
do, or otherwise how to bestow themselves: like our modern Frenchmen,
that had rather lose a pound of blood in a single combat, than a drop
of sweat in any honest labour. Every man almost hath something or other
to employ himself about, some vocation, some trade, but they do all by
ministers and servants, ad otia duntaxat se natos existimant, imo ad
sui ipsius plerumque et aliorum perniciem, [3216]as one freely taxeth
such kind of men, they are all for pastimes, 'tis all their study, all
their invention tends to this alone, to drive away time, as if they
were born some of them to no other ends. Therefore to correct and avoid
these errors and inconveniences, our divines, physicians, and
politicians, so much labour, and so seriously exhort; and for this
disease in particular, [3217]there can be no better cure than continual
business, as Rhasis holds, to have some employment or other, which may
set their mind awork, and distract their cogitations. Riches may not
easily be had without labour and industry, nor learning without study,
neither can our health be preserved without bodily exercise. If it be
of the body, Guianerius allows that exercise which is gentle, [3218]and
still after those ordinary frications which must be used every morning.
Montaltus, cap. 26. and Jason Pratensis use almost the same words,
highly commending exercise if it be moderate; a wonderful help so used,
Crato calls it, and a great means to preserve our health, as adding
strength to the whole body, increasing natural heat, by means of which
the nutriment is well concocted in the stomach, liver, and veins, few
or no crudities left, is happily distributed over all the body.
Besides, it expels excrements by sweat and other insensible vapours;
insomuch, that [3219]Galen prefers exercise before all physic,
rectification of diet, or any regimen in what kind soever; 'tis
nature's physician. [3220]Fulgentius, out of Gordonius de conserv. vit.
hom. lib. 1. cap. 7. terms exercise, a spur of a dull, sleepy nature,
the comforter of the members, cure of infirmity, death of diseases,
destruction of all mischiefs and vices. The fittest time for exercise
is a little before dinner, a little before supper, [3221]or at any time
when the body is empty. Montanus, consil. 31. prescribes it every
morning to his patient, and that, as [3222]Calenus adds, after he hath
done his ordinary needs, rubbed his body, washed his hands and face,
combed his head and gargarised. What kind of exercise he should use,
Galen tells us, lib. 2. et 3. de sanit. tuend. and in what measure,
[3223] till the body be ready to sweat, and roused up; ad ruborem, some
say, non ad sudorem, lest it should dry the body too much; others
enjoin those wholesome businesses, as to dig so long in his garden, to
hold the plough, and the like. Some prescribe frequent and violent
labour and exercises, as sawing every day so long together (epid. 6.
Hippocrates confounds them), but that is in some cases, to some
peculiar men; [3224]the most forbid, and by no means will have it go
farther than a beginning sweat, as being [3225]perilous if it exceed.
Of these labours, exercises, and recreations, which are likewise
included, some properly belong to the body, some to the mind, some more
easy, some hard, some with delight, some without, some within doors,
some natural, some are artificial. Amongst bodily exercises, Galen
commends ludum parvae pilae, to play at ball, be it with the hand or
racket, in tennis-courts or otherwise, it exerciseth each part of the
body, and doth much good, so that they sweat not too much. It was in
great request of old amongst the Greeks, Romans, Barbarians, mentioned
by Homer, Herodotus, and Plinius. Some write, that Aganella, a fair
maid of Corcyra, was the inventor of it, for she presented the first
ball that ever was made to Nausica, the daughter of King Alcinous, and
taught her how to use it.
The ordinary sports which are used abroad are hawking, hunting, hilares
venandi labores, [3226]one calls them, because they recreate body and
mind, [3227]another, the [3228]best exercise that is, by which alone
many have been [3229]freed from all feral diseases. Hegesippus, lib. 1.
cap. 37. relates of Herod, that he was eased of a grievous melancholy
by that means. Plato, 7. de leg. highly magnifies it, dividing it into
three parts, by land, water, air. Xenophon, in Cyropaed. graces it with
a great name, Deorum munus, the gift of the gods, a princely sport,
which they have ever used, saith Langius, epist. 59. lib. 2. as well
for health as pleasure, and do at this day, it being the sole almost
and ordinary sport of our noblemen in Europe, and elsewhere all over
the world. Bohemus, de mor. gent. lib. 3. cap. 12. styles it therefore,
studium nobilium, communiter venantur, quod sibi solis licere
contendunt, 'tis all their study, their exercise, ordinary business,
all their talk: and indeed some dote too much after it, they can do
nothing else, discourse of naught else. Paulus Jovius, descr. Brit.
doth in some sort tax our [3230] English nobility for it, for living in
the country so much, and too frequent use of it, as if they had no
other means but hawking and hunting to approve themselves gentlemen
with.
Hawking comes near to hunting, the one in the air, as the other on the
earth, a sport as much affected as the other, by some preferred.
[3231]It was never heard of amongst the Romans, invented some twelve
hundred years since, and first mentioned by Firmicus, lib. 5. cap. 8.
The Greek emperors began it, and now nothing so frequent: he is nobody
that in the season hath not a hawk on his fist. A great art, and many
[3232]books written of it. It is a wonder to hear [3233]what is related
of the Turks' officers in this behalf, how many thousand men are
employed about it, how many hawks of all sorts, how much revenues
consumed on that only disport, how much time is spent at Adrianople
alone every year to that purpose. The [3234]Persian kings hawk after
butterflies with sparrows made to that use, and stares: lesser hawks
for lesser games they have, and bigger for the rest, that they may
produce their sport to all seasons. The Muscovian emperors reclaim
eagles to fly at hinds, foxes, &c., and such a one was sent for a
present to [3235]Queen Elizabeth: some reclaim ravens, castrils, pies,
&c., and man them for their pleasures.
Fowling is more troublesome, but all out as delightsome to some sorts
of men, be it with guns, lime, nets, glades, gins, strings, baits,
pitfalls, pipes, calls, stalking-horses, setting-dogs, decoy-ducks,
&c., or otherwise. Some much delight to take larks with day-nets, small
birds with chaff-nets, plovers, partridge, herons, snipe, &c. Henry the
Third, king of Castile (as Mariana the Jesuit reports of him, lib. 3.
cap. 7.) was much affected [3236]with catching of quails, and many
gentlemen take a singular pleasure at morning and evening to go abroad
with their quail-pipes, and will take any pains to satisfy their
delight in that kind. The [3237]Italians have gardens fitted to such
use, with nets, bushes, glades, sparing no cost or industry, and are
very much affected with the sport. Tycho Brahe, that great astronomer,
in the chorography of his Isle of Huena, and Castle of Uraniburge, puts
down his nets, and manner of catching small birds, as an ornament and a
recreation, wherein he himself was sometimes employed.
Fishing is a kind of hunting by water, be it with nets, weels, baits,
angling, or otherwise, and yields all out as much pleasure to some men
as dogs or hawks; [3238]When they draw their fish upon the bank, saith
Nic. Henselius Silesiographiae, cap. 3. speaking of that extraordinary
delight his countrymen took in fishing, and in making of pools. James
Dubravius, that Moravian, in his book de pisc. telleth, how travelling
by the highway side in Silesia, he found a nobleman, [3239]booted up to
the groins, wading himself, pulling the nets, and labouring as much as
any fisherman of them all: and when some belike objected to him the
baseness of his office, he excused himself, [3240]that if other men
might hunt hares, why should not he hunt carps? Many gentlemen in like
sort with us will wade up to the arm-holes upon such occasions, and
voluntarily undertake that to satisfy their pleasures, which a poor man
for a good stipend would scarce be hired to undergo. Plutarch, in his
book de soler. animal. speaks against all fishing, [3241]as a filthy,
base, illiberal employment, having neither wit nor perspicacity in it,
nor worth the labour. But he that shall consider the variety of baits
for all seasons, and pretty devices which our anglers have invented,
peculiar lines, false flies, several sleights, &c. will say, that it
deserves like commendation, requires as much study and perspicacity as
the rest, and is to be preferred before many of them. Because hawking
and hunting are very laborious, much riding, and many dangers accompany
them; but this is still and quiet: and if so be the angler catch no
fish, yet he hath a wholesome walk to the brookside, pleasant shade by
the sweet silver streams; he hath good air, and sweet smells of fine
fresh meadow flowers, he hears the melodious harmony of birds, he sees
the swans, herons, ducks, water-horns, coots, &c., and many other fowl,
with their brood, which he thinketh better than the noise of hounds, or
blast of horns, and all the sport that they can make.
Many other sports and recreations there be, much in use, as ringing,
bowling, shooting, which Ascam recommends in a just volume, and hath in
former times been enjoined by statute, as a defensive exercise, and an
[3242]honour to our land, as well may witness our victories in France.
Keelpins, tronks, quoits, pitching bars, hurling, wrestling, leaping,
running, fencing, mustering, swimming, wasters, foils, football,
balloon, quintain, &c., and many such, which are the common recreations
of the country folks. Riding of great horses, running at rings, tilts
and tournaments, horse races, wild-goose chases, which are the disports
of greater men, and good in themselves, though many gentlemen by that
means gallop quite out of their fortunes.
But the most pleasant of all outward pastimes is that of [3243]Areteus,
deambulatio per amoena loca, to make a petty progress, a merry journey
now and then with some good companions, to visit friends, see cities,
castles, towns,
[3244]Visere saepe amnes nitidos, per amaenaque Tempe,
Et placidas summis sectari in montibus auras.
To see the pleasant fields, the crystal fountains,
And take the gentle air amongst the mountains.