 Section 8 of the anatomy of melancholy volume 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The anatomy of melancholy volume 2 by Robert Burton. Section 8. Partition 2. Section 2. Member 3. Part 2. In the meantime let us consider of that which is sub-deo and find out a true cause, if it be possible, of such accidents meet your alterations as happen above ground. Wentz proceed that variety of manners and a distinct character as it were to several nations. Some are wise, sub-tile, witty, others dull, sad and heavy, some big, some little, as Tully, De Fato, Plato, Intimayo, Fegatius and Baudin prove at large some soft and some hardy, barbarous, civil, black, done, white. Is it from the air, from the soil, influence of stars or some other secret cause? Why doth Africa breed so many venomous beasts, Ireland none? Athens owls, Crete none, why hath Daulis and Thebes no swallows, so Palsanius informeth us, as well as the rest of Greece? Ithaca no hairs, Pontus asses, Scythia swine. Wentz comes this variety of complexions, colours, plants, birds, beasts, metals, peculiar almost to every place. Why so many thousands strange birds and beasts, proper to America alone, as Acosta demands? Book 4, chapter 36, were they created in the six days or ever in Noah's Ark? If there, why are they not dispersed and found in other countries? It is a thing, saith he, hath long held me in suspense. No Greek, Latin, Hebrew ever heard of them before, and yet as differing from our European animals as an egg and a chestnut, and which is more kind horses, sheep, etc., till the Spaniards brought them, were never heard of in those parts. How comes it to pass that in the same sight, in one latitude, to such as a perioike, there should be such difference of soil, complexion, colour, metal, air, etc. The Spaniards are white, and so are Italians, when, as the inhabitants about Caput Bonai spay, are black-a-mores, and yet both are light distant from the equator. Nay, they that dwell in the same parallel lines with these negroes, as about the Straits of Magellan, are white-coloured, and yet some in Presbyter John's country in Ethiopia are done. They, in Zeilun and Malabar, parallel with them, again black. Manemotapa in Africa and St Thomas Isle are extreme hot, both under the line. Cold black their inhabitants, whereas in Peru they are quite opposite in colour, very temperate or rather cold, and yet both alike elevated. Moscow, in 53 degrees of latitude, extreme cold, as those northern countries usually are, having one perpetual hard frost all winter long, and in 52 degrees latitude, sometimes hard frost and snow all summer, as Buttons Bay, etc., or by Fitts, and yet England, near the same latitude, and Ireland, very moist, warm, and more temperate in winter than Spain, Italy, or France. Is it the sea that causes this difference, and the air that comes from it? Why, then, is Easter so cold near the Uxine, Pontus, Bithynia, and all Thrace? Frigidas Regiones, Maginus calls them, and yet their latitude is Butt 42, which should be hot. Kevira or Nova Albion in America bordering on the sea was so cold in July that our Englishmen could hardly endure it. At Nuremberga, in 45 latitude, all the sea is frozen ice, and yet in a more southern latitude than ours. New England and the island of Cambria-al-Colcos, which that noble gentleman, Mr. Vaughan, or Orpheus, Jr., describes in his Golden Fleece, is in the same latitude with Little Britain in France, and yet their winter begins not till January, their spring till May, which search he accounts worthy of an astrologer. Is this from the Easterly winds or melting of ice and snow dissolved within the circle arctic, or that the air being thick is longer before it be warm by the sunbeams, and once heated, like an oven, will keep itself from cold? Our climes breed lice, Hungary and Ireland, Marley Auduant in this land, come to the Azores, by a secret virtue of that air they are instantly consumed, and all our European vermin almost, Seith or Tellius. Egypt is watered with Nelus not far from the sea, and yet there it seldom or never rains. Rhodes, an island of the same nature, yields not a cloud, and yet our islands ever dropping and inclining to rain. The Atlantic Ocean is still subject to storms, but in del Zord, or Mare Pacifico, seldom or never any. Is it from the tropic stars at Perteo Portarum, in the Dodeca Moriés, or constellations, the moon's mansions, such aspects of planets, such winds or dissolving air, or thick air, which causes this, and the light differences of heat and cold? Bodán relates of a Portugal ambassador that, coming from Lisbon to Danzig in Spruce, found greater heat there than at any time at home. Don Garcia de Silva leg it to Philip III, king of Spain, residing at Ispahan in Persia 1619, in his letter to the Marquis of Bedmar, makes mention of greater cold in Ispahan, whose latitude is 31 degrees, than ever he felt in Spain or any part of Europe. The torrid zone was by our predecessors held to be uninhabitable, but by our modern travellers found to be most temperate, bedewed with frequent rains and moistening showers. The breeze and cooling blasts in some parts, as Acosta describes, most pleasant and fertile. Arica in Chile is by report one of the sweetest places that ever the sun shined on. Olympus Terai, a heaven on earth, how incomparably do some extol Mexico in Nova Hispania, Peru, Brazil etc. in some again hard, dry, sandy barren, a very desert, and still in the same latitude. Many times we find great diversity of air in the same country, by reason of the sight to seas, hills or dales, want of water, nature of soil and the like. As in Spain, Aragon is Aspera et Sica, harsh and evil inhabited. Estremadura is dry, sandy, barren most part, extreme hot by reason of his plains. And Lucia another paradise. Valencia a most pleasant air and continually green, so is it about Granada, on the one side fertile plains, on the other continual snow to be seen all summer long on the hilltops. That their houses in the Alps are three-quarters of the year covered with snow, who knows not. That tenor reefer is so cold at the top, extreme hot at the bottom. Mons Atlas in Africa, Lipanos in Palestine, with many such. Tantos inter Ardures, Fidoos Nibibus, Tacitus calls them, and Radzivillus Epistola II, Folium 27 yields it to be far hotter there than in any part of Italy. Tis true, but they are highly elevated near the middle region, and therefore cold, ob paucum solarium radiorum refractionem, as Cerarius answers. In the heat of summer, in the king's palace in Escorial, the air is most temperate by reason of a cold blast, which comes from the snowy mountains of Sierra de Caderama, hard by, when, as in Toledo, it is very hot, so in all other countries. The causes of these alterations are commonly by reason of their nearness, I say, to the middle region, but this diversity of air in places equally situated, elevated, and distant from the pole can hardly be satisfied with that diversity of plants, birds, beasts, which is so familiar with us. With Indians everywhere, the sun is equally distant, the same vertical stars, the same irradiations of planets, aspects like the same nearness of seas, the same superficies, the same soil, or not much different. Under the equator itself, amongst the Sierras, Andes, Larnos, as Herrera, Laet, and Acosta contend, there is tamirabilis et inopinata verietas, such variety of weather, utmerito exerchiat ingenia, that no philosophy can yet find out the true cause of it. When I consider how temperate it is in one place, Saetha Acosta, within the tropic of Capricorn, as about Laplata, and yet hard by at Potosí, in that same altitude, mountainous alike, extreme cold, extreme hot in Brazil, etc. Hic, ego, Saetha Acosta, filosofiam, Aristotelis, meteorologicam, wehemmenteririsi, com, etc. When the sun comes nearest to them, they have great tempests, storms, thunder and lightning, great store of rain, snow, and the foulest weather. When the sun is vertical, their rivers overflow, the morning fair and hot, noonday cold and moist, all which is opposite to us. How comes it to pass? Scaliger, Poeticae's, Book III, Chapter 16, discourseth thus of this subject. How comes, and wherefore is, this temeraria ciderum dispositio, this rash placing of stars, or, as epicurus will, fortuita, or accidental? Why are some big, some little, why are they so confusedly, unequally situated in the heavens, and set so much out of order? In all other things, nature is equal, proportionable, and constant. There be usta dimensiones et prudens partium dispositio, as in the fabric of man, his eyes, ears, nose, face, members are correspondent. Why are the heavens so irregular? Neque paribus molibus, neque paribus intervallis, whence is this deference? Diversos, he concludes, effigere locorum genius, to make diversity of countries, soils, manners, customs, characters, and constitutions among us, ute quantum vicinia ad caritatem ad dat, cidera distra hunt ad perniciem. And so, by this means, fluio well monte distintisunt dissimiles. The same places almost shall be distinguished in manners. But this reason is weak, and most insufficient. The fixed stars are removed, since Ptolemy's time, 26 degrees, from the first of Areas, and if the earth be immovable, as their sight varies, so should countries vary, and diverse alterations would follow. But this we perceive not, as in Tali's time with us in Britain, calum visufoidum et incuo facile generantor nubes et cetera, tis so still, wherephobodine, theatrum natura, book two, and some others, will have all these alterations and effects immediately to proceed from those genii, spirits, angels, which rule and domineer in several places. They cause storms, thunder, lightning, earthquakes, ruins, tempests, great winds, floods et cetera. The philosophers of Conimbra will refer this diversity to the influence of that imperian heaven, for some say the eccentricity of the sun is come nearer to the earth than in Ptolemy's time. The virtue, therefore, of all vegetals is decayed, men grow less, et cetera. There are that observe new motions of the heavens, new stars, palantia sidera, comets, clouds, call them what you will, like those medician, bourbonian, Austrian planets, lately detected, which do not decay, but come and go, rise higher and lower, hide and show themselves amongst the fixed stars, amongst the planets, above and beneath the moon, at set times, now nearer, now farther off, together, asunder, as he that plays upon a sackbutt by pulling it up and down, alters his tones and tunes. Do they, their stations and places, though to us undissurned, and from those motions proceed, as they conceive, diverse alterations, glavius conjectures otherwise, but they be but conjectures. Above Damascus in Kiley, Syria, is a paradise, by reason of the plenty of waters, impromptu causa est, and the deserts of Arabia barren. Because of rocks, rolling seas of sands, and dry mountains, quad inacosa, saith adricomius, montes habens, aspirus, saxosus, praikipites, horroris et mortis speckium, prais seferentes, uninhabitable therefore of men, birds, beasts, void of all green trees, plants and fruits, a vast rocky, horrid wilderness, which by no art can be manured, it is evident. Bohemia is cold, for that it lies all along to the north. But why should it be so hot in Egypt, or there never rain? Why should those Aetesian and northeastern winds blow continually and constantly so long together, in some places at set times, one way still, in the dog-days only? Here perpetual drought, there dropping showers, here foggy mists, there a pleasant air, here terrible thunder and lightning at such set seasons, here frozen seas all the year, there open in the same latitude, to the rest no such thing, nay quite opposite is to be found. Sometimes, as in Peru, on the one side of the mountain, it is hot, on the other cold, here snow, there wind, with infinite such. Fromundus in his meteors will excuse or solve all this by the sun's motion. But when there is such diversity to such as Perioike, or very near sight, how can that position hold? Who can give a reason of this diversity of meteors, that it should rain stones, frogs, mice, etc., rats, which they call lemur in Norway, and are manifestly observed, as Munster writes, by the inhabitants, to descend and fall with some feculent showers, and like so many locusts, consume all that is green? Leo Afer speaks as much of locusts about Fez in Barbary, there be infinite swarms in their fields upon a sudden. So at Arries in France, 1553, the like happened by the same mischief, all their grass and fruits were devoured, magna incolarum admiratione et consternatione, as Valeriola relates. Koilum subito obumbrabant, etc., he concludes, it could not be from natural causes, they cannot imagine whence they come but from heaven. Are these and such creatures, corn, wood, stones, worms, wool, blood, etc., lifted up into the middle region by the sunbeams, as Barakellus the physician disputes, and thence let fall with showers, or they're engendered. Cornelius Gemma is of that opinion, they are there conceived by celestial influences, others suppose they are immediately from God, or prodigies raised by art and illusions of spirits, which are the princes of the air, to whom Baudin, book two, the art from Natura, subscribes. In fine of meters in general, Aristotle's reasons are exploded by Bernadinos Telesius, by Parakellus his principles confuted, and other causes assigned, Sal, Sulfur, Mercury, in which his disciples are so expert, that they can alter elements and separate at their pleasure, make perpetual motions, not as cardan, tasnir, peregrinos, buy some magnetical virtue, but by mixture of elements, imitate thunder, like Salmonius, snow, hail, the seas ebbing and flowing, give life to creatures, as they say, without generation, and why not. Petrus nonius Saluciensis and Kepler take upon them to demonstrate that no meteors, clouds, fogs, vapours, arise higher than 50 or 80 miles, and all the rest be purer air or element of fire, which Cardan, Tycho and John Paynor manifestly confute by refractions and many other arguments. There is no such element of fire at all. If, as Tycho proves, the moon be distant from us fifty and six semi-diameters of the earth, and as Peter nonius will have it, the air be so anguished, what proportion is there but to ext the other three elements and it? To what use serves it? Is it full of spirits, which inhabit it, as the paracausians and Platonists hold, the higher the more noble, full of birds, or a mere vacuum, to no purpose? It is much controverted between Tycho Brahe and Christopher Rotman, the landgrave of Hesse's mathematician, in their astronomical epistles, whether it be the same diaphanum, clearness, matter of air and heavens, or two distinct essences. Christopher Rotman, John Paynor, Jordanus Brunus and many other late mathematicians, contend it is the same and one matter throughout, saving that the higher, still the purer it is, and more subtile, as they find by experience in the top of some hills in America. If a man ascend, he faints instantly for want of thicker air to refrigerate the heart. Acosta, Book 3, Chapter 9, calls this mountain Periacaca in Peru. It makes men cast and vomit, he saith, that climb it, as some other of those Andes do in the deserts of Chile for five hundred miles together, and for extremity of cold to lose their fingers and toes. Tycho will have two distinct matters of heaven and air, but to say truth, with some small qualifications, they have one and the self-same opinion about the essence and matter of heavens. That it is not hard and impenetrable, as peripatetics hold, transparent of a quinta esentia, but that it is penetrable and soft as the air itself, and that the planets move in it as birds in the air, fishes in the sea. This they prove by motion of comets and otherwise, though Clemontius in his antideco stiffly opposes, which are not generated as Aristotle teaches in the aerial region of a hot and dry exhalation, and so consumed, but as an exagerus and democratus held of old of a celestial matter. And as Tycho, Elysius, Ruslin, Thaddeus, Hagesius, Pena, Rotman, Fracustorius demonstrate by their progress, parallaxes, refractions, motions of the planets, which interfere and cut one another's orbs, now higher and then lower, as Mars amongst the rest, which sometimes, as Kepler confirms by his own, and Tycho's accurate observations, comes nearer the earth than the sun, and is again effed soon aloft in Jupiter's orb, and other sufficient reasons, far above the moon, exploding in the meantime that element of fire, those fictitious first water removers, those heavens, I mean, above the firmament, which Deirio, Lordovicus, Imola, Patricius, and many of the fathers affirm. Those monstrous orbs of eccentrics, and eccentric, if picucles, deterrentes, which, howsoever, Ptolemy, Alhazen, Vitello, Purbacius, Maginus, Claudius, and many of their associates, stiffly maintained to be real orbs, eccentric, concentric, circles, equant, etc., are absurd and ridiculous. For who is so mad to think that there should be so many circles, like subordinate wheels in a clock, all impenetrable and hard, as they fain, add and subtract at their pleasure? Maginus makes eleven heavens, subdivided into their orbs and circles, and all too little to serve those particular appearances. Phrakastorius, seventy-two homocentrics, Tycho Brahe, Nicholas Rameros, Heliceus Ruslin, have peculiar hypotheses of their own inventions, and they be but inventions, as most of them acknowledge, as we admit of equators, tropics, collures, circles Arctic and Antarctic, for doctrine's sake, though Rameros thinks them all unnecessary. They will have them supposed only for method and order. Tycho hath feigned, I know not how many subdivisions of epicycles in epicycles, etc., to calculate and express the moon's motion, but when all is done, as a supposition, and no otherwise, not, as he holds, hard, impenetrable, subtile, transparent, etc., while making music, as Pythagoras maintained of old, and Robert Constantine of late, but still, quiet, liquid, open, etc. End of Section 8. Section 9 of The Anatomy of Melancholy, Volume 2. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Anatomy of Melancholy, Volume 2, by Robert Burton. Section 9. Partition 2, Section 2, Member 3, Part 3. If the heavens then be penetrable as these men deliver, and no less, it were not a miss in this aerial progress, to make wings and fly up, which that Turk in Buspequeus made his fellow citizens in Constantinople believe he would perform, and some newfangled wits, he thinks, should some time or other find out. Or if that may not be, yet, with a Galeo's glass, or Icaro Maniposa's wings in Lucian, command the spheres and heavens, and see what is done amongst them. Whether there be generation and corruption, as some think, by reason of the ethereal comets, that in Cassiopeia 1572, that in Signo 1600, that in Sagittarius 1604, and many like, which by no means Julius Caesar Lagala, that Italian philosopher, in his physical disputation with Galileo's, De Fenomenis in Orbe Lunae, Chapter 9, will admit, or that they were created abinitio, and show themselves at set times, as Helicius Ruslin contains, have poles, axel trees, circles of their own, and regular motions, for, known periunt, said Minuontor et disparent. Blancarnus holds they come and go by fits, casting their tails still from the sun. Some of them, as a burning glass, projects the sunbeams from it, though not always neither. For sometimes a comet casts his tail from Venus, as Tycho observes, and as Helicius Ruslin, of some others, from the moon, with little stars about them, ad stuporem astronomorum, cum multis aliis in kylo miraculis, all which argue with those Medesian, Austrian, and Bourbonian stars, that the heaven of the planets is indistinct, pure and open, in which the planets move, kirtis legibus acmetis. Examin likewise, an kylem sit coloratum, whether the stars be of that bigness, distance, as astronomers relate, so many in number, 1026, 1725, as Bayerus, or as some rabbins, 29,000 myriads, or as Galileo discovers by his glasses, infinite, and that via lactea, a confused light of small stars, like so many nails in a door, or all in a row, like those 12,000 aisles of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, whether the least visible star in the eighth sphere be 18 times bigger than the earth, and, as Tycho calculates, 14,000 semi-diameters distant from it, whether they be thicker parts of the orbs, as Aristotle delivers, or so many habitable worlds, as democrates, whether they have light of their own, or from the sun, or give light round, as Patricius discourses, and equidistant are Kentramundi, whether light be of their essence, and that light be a substance or an accident, whether they be hot by themselves, or by accident cause heat, whether there be such a procession of the equinoxes as Copernicus holds, or that the eighth sphere move, and Bene Filosofentor, Roger Bacon, and J.D., aphorisms De Multiplicationi Specchierum, whether there be any such images ascending with each degree of the zodiac in the east, as Aliacensis feins, and Aquasupercalum, as Patricius and the schoolman will, a crystalline watery heaven, which is certainly to be understood of that in the middle region, for otherwise, if at Norse flood the water came from thence, it must be above a hundred years falling down to us, as some calculate, besides anterisit animata, which some so confidently believe, with Orpheus, Hermes, Avaroes, from which all other souls of men, beasts, devils, plants, fishes, etc., are derived, and into which again, after some revolutions, as Plato in his Timaeus, Proteinus in his Eniades, more largely discuss, they return. See Calcidius and Benius, Plato's commentators, as all philosophical matter in Materium primum, Keplerus, Patricius, and some other Neoterics, have in part revived this opinion, and that every star in heaven hath a soul, angel or intelligence to animate or move it, etc., or to omit all smaller controversies, as matters of less moment, and examine that main paradox of the earth's motion, now so much in question. Aristarchus Sumius Pythagoras maintained it of old, Democritus and many of their scholars, Didarchus Astonica, Antony Fascarinus, a Carmelite, and some other commentators, will have Job to insinuate as much, chapter 9, verse 4, and that this one place of Scripture makes more for the earth's motion than all the others prove against it, whom Pynida confutes most contradict. Howsoever, it is revived since by Copernicus, not as a truth, but a supposition, as he himself confesseth in the preface to Pope Nicholas, but now maintained in good earnest by Calcaninus, Telessius, Kepler, Rotman, Gilbert, Diggs, Galileo, Campanella, and especially by Lansbergius. Naturai, Rationi, Edwarditati, Consentaneum, by Oregalus, and some others of his followers, for if the earth be the centre of the world, stand still, and the heavens move, as the most received opinion is, which they call in ordinatum caili dispositionem, though stiffly maintained by Tycho, Ptolemaeus, and their adherents, quis ele furor, etc. What fury is that? saith Dr Gilbert. Satis animose, as Cabeus notes, that shall drive the heavens about, with such incomprehensible celerity in 24 hours, when, as every point of the firmament, and in the equator, must needs move, so Cabeus calculates, 176,660 in one 246th part of an hour, and an arrow, out of a bow, must go seven times about the earth, whilst a man can say an ave Maria, if it keep the same space, or compass the earth, 1,884 times in an hour, which is supra humanum cogitationem, beyond human conceit, occhior et jaculor et ventos, a quanti sagitta, a man could not ride so much ground, going 40 miles a day, in 2,904 years, as the firmament goes in 23 hours, or so much in 203 years, as the firmament in one minute, quadin credibile, we datored, and the pole star, which to our thinking scarce moveeth out of his place, goeth a bigger circuit than the sun, whose diameter is much larger than the diameter of the heaven of the sun, and 20,000 semi-diameters of the earth from us, with the rest of the fixed stars, as Tycho proves. To avoid, therefore, these impossibilities, they ascribe a triple motion to the earth, the sun immovable in the centre of the whole world, the earth centre of the moon alone, above Mars and Mercury, beneath Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, or, as a reganus and others will, one single motion to the earth, still placed in the centre of the world, which is more probable, a single motion to the firmament, which moves in 30 or 26,000 years, and so the planets. Saturn, in 30 years, absolves his soul and proper motion, Jupiter in 12, Mars in 3, etc., and so solve all appearances, better than any way whatsoever, calculate all motions, be they in longum or latum, direct, stationary, retrograde, ascent or descent, without epicycles, intricate eccentrics, etc., rectius, commodius, much more certain than by those alfonsign, or any such tables, which are grounded from those other suppositions, and tis true, they say, according to optic principles, the visible appearance of the planets do so indeed answer to their magnitudes and orbs, and come nearest to the mathematical observations and precedent calculations, there is no repugnancy to physical axioms, because no penetration of orbs. But then between the sphere of Saturn and the firmaments, there is such an incredible and vast space or distance, seven million semi-diameters of the earth, as Tycho calculates, void of stars, and besides, they do so enhance the bigness of the stars, enlarge their circuit, to solve those ordinary objections of parallaxes and retrogradations of the fixed stars, that alterations of the poles, elevation in several places, or latitude of cities here on earth, for, say they, if a man's eye were in the firmament, he should not at all discern that great annual motion of the earth, but it would still appear, putum induizibile, and seem to be fixed in one place of the same bigness, that it is quite opposite to reason, to natural philosophy, and all out as absurd as disproportional, so some will, as prodigious, as that of the sun's swift motion of heavens. But hok posito, to grant this their tenet of the earth's motion, if the earth move, it is a planet, and shines to them in the moon, and to the other planetary inhabitants, as the moon, and they do to us upon the earth, but shine she doth, as Galileo, Kepler, and others prove, and then, per consequence, the rest of the planets are inhabited, as well as the moon, which she grants in his dissertation with Galileo's Nunchios Ciderius, that there be Jovial and Saturn inhabitants, etc., and those several planets have their several moons about them, as the earth hath hers, as Galileo hath already evinced by his glasses, 3108, four about Jupiter, two about Saturn, though Citius, the Florentine, for Tuneus Licatus, and Julius Caesar Legala, cavillat it. Yet Kepler, the emperor's mathematician, confirms out of his experience, that he saw as much by the same help, and more about Mars, Venus, and the rest they hope to find out, per adventure even amongst the fixed stars, which Brunus and Brutius have already averred. Then I say the earth and they be planets alike, moved about the sun, the common center of the world alike, and it may be those two green children, which Nubrigensis speaks of in his time, that fell from heaven, came from thence, and that famous stone that fell from heaven in Aristotle's time, Olympiades 84, Ano tertio, and Capuaz fluenta, recorded by Laertius and others, or Anchile, or Buckler in Numa's time, recorded by Festus. We may likewise insert with Campanella and Brunus, that which Pythagoras, Aristarchus, Sammius, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Melissus, Democritus, Lucchipus, maintained in their ages, there be infinite worlds and infinite earths or systems, in infinito aetherae, which Eusebius collects out of their tenets, because infinite stars and planets, like unto this of ours, which some stick not, still to maintain and publicly defend, sperabundus expecto innumerabilium mundorum in aeternitate perambulatione, etc. For if the firmament be of such an incomparable bigness, as these Copernical giants will have it, infinitum, out infinitoproximum, so vast and full of innumerable stars, as being infinite in extent, one above another, some higher, some lower, some nearer, some farther off, and so far asunder, and those so huge and great, in so much that if the whole sphere of Saturn, and all that is included in it, totum agrigatum es promundus of Louvain, in his tract, de immobilitate aetherae argues, If our world be small in respect, why may we not suppose a plurality of worlds, those infinite stars, visible in the firmament, to be so many suns, with particular fixed centres, to have likewise their subordinate planets, as the sun hath his, dancing still around him, which Cardinal Cusanos, Valcarinos, Brunus, and some others have held, and some still maintain, animae, Aristotelismo in nutritae et minuti speculatione bus assuetae secus for sun, etc. Though they seem close to us, they are infinitely distant, and so, per consequence, there are infinite habitable worlds. What hinders, why should not an infinite cause, as God is, produce infinite effects? Kepler, I confess, will by no means admit of Brunus' infinite worlds, or that the fixed stars should be so many suns, with their compassing planets. Yet, the said Kepler, between Jest and Ernest in his perspectives, Lunar Geography et Somnio Suo, seems in part to agree with this, and partly to contradict. For the planets, he yields them to be inhabited, he doubts of the stars, and so doth Tycho, in his astronomical epistles, out of a consideration of their vastity and greatness, break out into some such-like speeches, that he will never believe those great and huge bodies were made to no other use than this that we perceive to illuminate the earth, a point insensible in respect of the whole. But who shall dwell in these vast bodies, earths, worlds, if they be inhabited, rational creatures, as Kepler demands, or have they souls to be saved, or do they inhabit a better part of the world than we do? Are we or they, Lords of the World, and how are all things made for man? This hard to determine, this only he proves, that we are in praikipo mundi sinu, in the best place, best world, nearest the heart of the sun. Thomas Campanella, a Calabrian monk, in his second book Desensurerum, Chapter 4, subscribes to this of Kepler, that they are inhabited he certainly suppose it, but with what kind of creatures he cannot say, he labours to prove it by all means, and that they are infinite worlds, having made an apology for Galileo and dedicates this tenet of his to Cardinal Cayetanus. Others freely speak, mutter, and would persuade the world, as Marinos Marcanus complains, that our modern divines are too severe and rigid against mathematicians, ignorant and peevish, in not admitting their true demonstrations and certain observations, that they tyrannise over art, science and all philosophy, in suppressing their labours, saith Pomponatius, forbidding them to write, to speak a truth, all to maintain their superstition, and for their prophet's sake. As for those places of scripture, which are punit, they will have spoken ad captain Woelgi, and if rightly understood and favourably interpreted, not at all against it, and as Otho Gasman writes, many great divines, besides Porphyrios, Proclus, Simplicius, and those heathen philosophers, Doctrina and Aetate, when Irandi, Moses, Ganesin, Mundan and Popularis, Neschiochulius, Ruditatis, quailonga apsit awera filosoforum eruditione, insimulant. For Moses makes mention, but of two planets, sun and moon, no four elements, etc. Read more on him, Ingrosius and Junius. But to proceed, these and such like insolent and bold attempts, prodigious paradoxes, inferences must needs follow, if it once be granted, which Rotman, Kepler, Gilbert, Digius, Oryganus, Galileo, and others maintain of the earth's motion. That is a planet, and shines as the Moonduth, which contains in it both land and seas as the Moonduth, for so they find by their glasses that Makulai infarctie lunai, the brighter parts are earth, the dusky sea, which Thales, Plutarch, and Pythagoras formerly taught, and manifestly discern hills and dales, and such like concavities, if we may subscribe to and believe Galileo's observations. But to avoid these paradoxes of the earth's motion, which the Church of Rome hath lately condemned as heretical, as appears by Blancarnus and from Moondus' writings, our latter mathematicians have rolled all the stones that may be stirred, and to solve all appearances and objections have invented new hypotheses, and fabricated new systems of the world, out of their own didderlaying heads. Prakastorius will have the earth stand still as before, and to avoid that supposition of eccentrics and epicycles, he hath coined seventy-two homocentrics to solve all appearances. Nicholas Ramarus will have the earth the centre of the world, but movable, and the eighth sphere immovable, the five upper planets to move about the sun, the sun and moon about the earth, of which Orbs Tycho Brahe puts the earth the centre immovable, the stars immovable, the rest with Ramarus, the planets without Orbs to wander in the air, keep time and distance, true motion, according to that virtue which God hath given them. Heliceus Ruslin sent Sirith both, with Copernicus, whose hypothesis, De Terai Motu, Philippus Lansbergius hath lately vindicated, and demonstrated with solid arguments in a just volume. Jansonius Caesens hath illustrated in a sphere. The said Johannes Lansbergius, 1633, hath since defended his assertion against all the cavils and calamities of Fromundus' antiaristarchus, Baptista Morinus, and Petrus Bartholinos. Fromundus, 1634, hath written against him again, J. Rosseus of Aberdeen, et cetera, sound drums and trumpets, whilst Ruslin, I say, censures all and tolle maus himself as insufficient. One offends against natural philosophy, another against optic principles. A third against mathematical, hath not answering to astronomical observations. One puts a great space between Saturn's orb and the eighth sphere, another too narrow. In his own hypothesis, he makes the earth as before the universal centre, the sun to the five upper planets. To the eighth sphere, he ascribes diurnal motion, eccentrics and epicycles to the seven planets, which hath been formally exploded. And so, Dumwitant Sturti Wittia in Contraria Curunt, as a tinker stops one hole and makes two, he corrects them, and doth worse himself, reform some and maus all. In the meantime, the world is tossed in a blanket amongst them. They hoist the earth up and down like a ball, make it stand and go at their pleasures. One saith the sun stands, another he moves. A third comes in, taking them all at rebound. And lest there should any paradox be wanting, he finds certain spots and clouds in the sun by the help of glasses, which multiply, saith Kepleris, a thing seen, a thousand times bigger in plano, and makes it come thirty-two times nearer to the eye of the beholder. But see the demonstration of this glass in Tad, by means of which the sun must turn round upon his own centre, or they about the sun. Fabricius puts only three, and those in the sun, Apelli's fifteen, and those without the sun, floating like the Sianian Isles in the Yuxin Sea. Tad, the Frenchman, hath observed thirty-three, and those neither spots nor clouds, as Galileo, Epistola ad Valcerum supposeth. But planets concentric with the sun, and not far from him, with regular motions. Christopher Schemer, a German-Swiss Jesuit, or Cigarosa, divides them in Maculas et Faculas, and will have them to be fixed in solis superficie, and to absolve their periodical and regular motion in twenty-seven or twenty-eight days, holding with all the rotation of the sun upon his centre, and all are so confident that they have made schemes and tables of their motions. The Hollander, in his Dissertatio Cula, cum Apelli, censures all, and thus they disagree amongst themselves, old and new, irreconcilable in their opinions. Thus Aristarchus, thus Hipparchus, thus Ptolemaeus, thus Albateginus, thus Alfaghanus, thus Tycho, thus Ramerus, thus Rostinus, thus Fracastorius, thus Copernicus, and his Adherents, thus Clavius, and Maginus, etc., with their followers, vary and determine of these celestial orbs and bodies. And so, whilst these men contend about the sun and moon, like the philosophers in Lucian, it is to be feared the sun and moon will hide themselves, and be as much offended as she was with those, and send another messenger to Jupiter, by some newfangled Icarum and Ippus, to make an end of all those curious controversies, and scatter them abroad. End of Section 9 Section 10 of The Anatomy of Melancholy, Volume 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org The Anatomy of Melancholy, Volume 2 by Robert Burton Section 10 Partition 2, Section 2, Member 3, Part 4 But why should the sun and moon be angry, or take exceptions at mathematicians and philosophers, when as the like measure, is offered unto God himself, by a company of theologasters? They are not contented to see the sun and moon, measure their sight and biggest distance in a glass, calculate their motions, or visit the moon in a poetical fiction, or a dream, as he saith, audax facinus et memorabile, nunkin kipiam, neque hoc saicolo usur patum prius, quid in lunae regno hark nocte gestum sit eksponam, et quo nemo un quam nisi somniando perwenit, but he and Menipus, or as Peter Coneus, bonafide agam, nihil eiorum qua scripturus sum, verum esse skitote, et cetera, quae naq facta, neq futura sunt, di cam, stili tantum et in genii causar, not ingest, but in good earnest, these gigantical cyclops will transcend spheres, heaven, stars, into that Empyrean heaven, soar higher yet, and see what God himself doth. The Jewish Talmudists take upon them to determine how God spends his whole time, sometimes playing with Leviathan, sometimes overseeing the world, et cetera, like Lucian's Jupiter, that spent much of the year in painting butterflies' wings and seeing who offered sacrifice, telling the hours when it should rain, how much snow should fall in such a place, which way the wind should stand in Greece, which way in Africa. In the Turks Al-Quran, Muhammad is taken up to heaven, upon a Pegasus sent on purpose for him as he lay in bed with his wife, and after some conference with God is set on ground again. The pagans paint him and mangle him after a thousand fashions. Our heretics, schismatics, and some schoolmen come not far behind. Some paint him in the habit of an old man, and make maps of heaven, number the angels, tell their several names, offices, some deny God and his providence, some take his office out of his hands, will bind and loose in heaven, police, pardon, forgive, and be quartermaster with him. Some call his Godhead in question, his power and attributes, his mercy, justice, providence. They will know with Cecilius why good and bad are punished together, war, fires, plagues, infest all alike, why wicked men flourish, good are poor, in prison, sick and ill at ease, why doth he suffer so much mischief and evil to be done, if he be able to help, why doth he not assist good or resist bad, reform our wills, if he be not the author of sin, and let such enormities be committed, unworthy of his knowledge, wisdom, government, mercy and providence, why let see all things be done by fortune and chance. Others, as prodigiously, inquire after his omnipotency, and posset plures, similes, creare deus, and excarabeo, deum, et cetera, et quo deumum ruetis sacrificuli. Some, by visions and revelations, take upon them to be familiar with God and to be of privy counsel with him. They will tell how many and who shall be saved, when the world shall come to an end, what year, what month, and whatsoever else God hath reserved unto himself and to his angels. Some again, curious, fantastics, will know more than this, and inquire with epicurus what God did before the world was made. Was he idle? Where did he buyed? What did he make the world of? Why did he then make it and not before? If he made it new, or to have an end, how is he unchangeable, infinite, et cetera? Some will dispute, cavill, and abject, as Julian did of old, whom Cyril confutes, as Simon Magus is feigned to do, in that dialogue betwixt him and Peter, and Ammonius the philosopher, in that dialogical disputation with Zacharias the Christian. If God be infinitely and only good, why should he alter or destroy the world? If he confound that which is good, how shall himself continue good? If he pull it down because evil, how shall he be free from the evil that made it evil, et cetera? With many such absurd and brain-sick questions, intricacies, froth of human wit, and excrements of curiosity, et cetera, which, as our Saviour told his inquisitive disciples, are not fit for them to know. But, oh, I am now gone quite out of sight. I am almost giddy with roving about. I could have ranged farther yet, but I am an infant, and not able to dive into these profundities, or sound these depths. Not able to understand, much less to discuss. I leave the contemplation of these things to stronger wits, that have better ability, and happier leisure, to wade into such philosophical mysteries. For put case, I was as able as willing, yet what can one man do? I will conclude with Scaliger. When God sees his time, he will reveal these mysteries to mortal men, and show that to some few at last, which he hath concealed so long. For I am of his mind that Columbus did not find out America by chance, but God directed him at that time to discover it. It was contingent to him, but necessary to God. He reveals and conceals to whom, and when he will, and which one set of history, and records of former times, God in his providence, to check our presumptuous inquisition, wraps up all things in uncertainty, bars us from long antiquity, and bounds our search within the compass of some few ages. Many good things are lost, which our predecessors made use of, as Panchirola will better inform you. Many new things are daily invented to the public good. So kingdoms, men, and knowledge, ebb and flow, are hid and revealed, and when you have all done, as the preacher concluded, nihil est subsole novum. Nothing new under the sun. But my melancholy spaniel's quest, my game is sprung, and I must suddenly come down and follow. Jason Pretensis, in his book De Morbis Capitis, and chapter of melancholy, have these words out of galleon. Let them come to me to know what meat and drink they shall use, and besides that I will teach them what temper of ambient air they shall make choice of, what wind, what countries they shall choose, and what a void. Out of which lines of his, thus much we may gather, that to this cure of melancholy, amongst other things, the rectification of air is necessarily required. This is performed either in reforming, natural or artificial air. Natural is that which is in our election, to choose or a void, and is either general, to countries, provinces, particular, to cities, towns, villages, or private houses. What harm those extremities of heat or cold do in this malady I have formally shown. The medium must needs be good, where the air is temperate, serene, quiet, free from bogs, fens, mists, or manner of putrefaction, contagious and filthy, noisome smells. The Egyptians, by all geographers, are commended to be Hilaris, a conceited and merry nation, which I can ascribe to no other cause than the serenity of their air. They that live in the Orcades are registered by Hector Boethius and Cardon to be of fair complexion, long lived, most healthful, free from all manner of infirmities of body and mind, by reason of a sharp purifying air which comes from the sea. The Boeotians in Greece were dull and heavy, crassi Bioti, by reason of a foggy air in which they lived, Biotum in Crassau Eurare's Aire Natum, Attica, most acute, pleasant and refined. The climate changes not so much customs, manners, wits, as Aristotle, Politics, Book 6, Chapter 4, Vigatius, Plato, Baudin, hath proved at large, as constitutions of their bodies and temperature itself. In all particular provinces we see it confirmed by experience, as the air is, so are the inhabitants, dull, heavy, witty, subtle, neat, cleanly, clownish, sick and sound. In Perigord in France the air is subtle, healthful, seldom any plague or contagious disease but hilly and barren. The men sound nimble and lusty, but in some parts of Guyenne, full of moors and marshes, the people dull, heavy and subject to many infirmities. Who sees not a great difference between Surrey, Sussex and Romney Marsh, the worlds in Lincolnshire and the Fens? He therefore that loves his health, if his ability will give him leave, must often shift places, and make choice of such as are wholesome, pleasant and convenient. There is nothing better than change of air in this malady, and generally for health, to wander up and down, as those tartary zamolenses that live in hordes, and take opportunity of times, places, seasons. The kings of Persia had their summer and winter houses, in winter at Sardis, in summer at Sousa, now at Persepolis, then at Pasargada. Cyrus lived seven cold months at Babylon, three at Sousa, two at Hepatana, says Stenophon, and had by that means a perpetual spring. The great Turk sojourned sometimes at Constantinople, sometimes at Adrienople, etc. The kings of Spain have their Iscurial, in heat of summer, Madrid for a wholesome seat, Valladolid, a pleasant sight, etc. Variety of Sequesus, as all princes and great men have, and there's several progresses to this purpose. Luculus the Roman had his house at Rome, at Biae, etc. When Gnaeus Pompeius, Marcus Cicero, saith Plutarch, and many noble men in the summer, came to see him, that supper Pompeius gested with him, that it was an elegant and pleasant village, full of windows, galleries, and all offices fit for a summer house, but in his judgment very unfit for winter. Luculus made answer that the lord of the house had wit, like a crane, that changed her country with the season. He had other houses furnished and built for that purpose, all out as commodious as this. So Tully had his tusculin, Plinius his laurit and village, and every gentleman of any fashion in our times hath the like. The Bishop of Exeter had fourteen several houses, all furnished in times past. In Italy, though they bide in cities in winter, which is more gentlemanlike, all the summer they come abroad to their country houses, to recreate themselves. Our gentry in England live most part in the country, except be some few castles, building still in bottoms, saith Jovius, or near woods. Corona ar borom virentium. You shall know a village by a tuft of trees, at or about it, to avoid those strong winds, wherewith the island is infested, and cold winter blasts. Some, discommend, moated houses as unwholesome. So Camden, saith of Uelm, that it was therefore unfrequented, obstugny wikini hallitus, and all such places as be near lakes or rivers. But I am of opinion that these inconveniences will be mitigated or easily corrected by good fires, as one reports of Venice. That groveulentia and fog of the moors is sufficiently qualified by those innumerable smokes. Namor, Thomas Ravenus, a great physician, contends that the Venetians are generally longer lived than any city in Europe, and live many of them 120 years. But it is not water simply that so much offends, as the slime and noisome smells that accompany such overflowed places, which is but at some few seasons after a flood, and is sufficiently recompensed with sweet smells and aspects in summer, wherepinget, wario, gemantie, prata, colore, and many other commodities of pleasure and profit, or else may be corrected by the site, if it be somewhat remote from the water as Lindley, Orton, Supermontem, Drayton, or a little more elevated, though nearer, as Corkut, Ammington, Polsworth, Weddington, to insist in such places best to be known upon the river of Anchor, in Warwickshire, Swarston, and Drake's Lear upon Trent. Or, howsoever they be unseasonable in winter, or at some times, they have their good use in summer. If so be that their means be so slender, as they may not admit of any such variety, but must determine once for all, and make one house serve each season, by no no men that have given better rules in this behalf than our husbandry writers. Cato and Columella prescribe a good house to stand by a navigable river, good highways near some city, and in a good soil, but that is more for commodity than health. The best soil commonly yields the worst air. A dry sandy plat is fittest to build upon, and such as is rather hilly than plain, full of downs a Cotswold country, as being most commodious for hawking, hunting, wood, waters, and all manner of pleasures. Perigord in France is barren, yet by reason of the excellency of the air, and such pleasures that it affords, much inhabited by the nobility, as Nuremberg in Germany, Toledo in Spain. Our countryman, Tusa, will tell us so much, that the field-own is for profit, the woodland for pleasure and health, the one commonly a deep clay, therefore noisome in winter, and subject to bad highways, the other a dry sand. Provision may be had elsewhere, and our towns are generally bigger in the woodland than the field-own, more frequent and populous, and gentlemen more delight to dwell in such places. Sutton Coldfield in Warwickshire, where I was once a grammar scholar, may be a sufficient witness, which stands, as Camden notes, loco ingrato et sterile, but in an excellent air, and full of all manner of pleasures. Wadley in Berkshire is situate in a veil, though not so fertile a soil as some veils afford, yet a most commodious sight, wholesome in a delicious air, a rich and pleasant seat. So Seagrave in Leicestershire, which town I am now bound to remember, is situated in a champagne at the edge of the wolds, and more barren than the villages about it, yet no place likely yields a better air, and he that built that fair house, Wallerton, in Nottinghamshire, is much to be commended, though the track be sandy and barren about it, for making choice of such a place. Constantine praiseth mountains, hilly, steep places, above the rest by the seaside, and such as look toward the north upon some great river, as Farmac in Derbyshire, on the Trent, environed with hills, open only to the north, like Mount Edgecombe in Cornwall, which Mr. Carew so much admires for an excellent seat. Such is the general sight of Bohemia, Serenat Boreas, the north wind clarifies, but near lakes or marshes, in holes, obscure places, or to the south and west, he utterly disproves. Those winds are unwholesome, putrefying, and make men subject to diseases. The best building for health, according to him, is in high places, and in an excellent prospect, like that of Cudston in Oxfordshire, which place I must honoris ergo mention, is lately and fairly built, in a good air, good prospect, good soil, both for profit and pleasure, not so easily to be matched. Crescentius, in his Book I De Agricultura, Chapter 5, is very copious in this subject, how a house should be wholesomely sited, in a good coast, good air, wind, etc. Varro de Reirustica, Book I, Chapter 12, forbids lakes and rivers, marshy and manured grounds. They cause a bad air, gross diseases, hard to be cured. If it be so that he cannot help it, better, as he advises, sell thy house and land, than lose thine health. He that respects not this in choosing of his seat, or building his house, is mente captus, mad, Cato Seeth, and his dwelling next to hell itself, according to Columella. He commands, in conclusion, the middle of a hill, upon a descent. Battista Porta Bilae, censures Varro, Cato, Columella, and those ancient rustics, approving many things, disallowing some, and will, by all means, have the front of a house stand to the south, which, how it may be good in Italy and hotter climbs, I know not, in our northern countries I am sure it is best. Stefanus, a Frenchman, subscribes to this, approving especially the descent of a hill south or southeast, with trees to the north, so that it be well watered. A condition in all sights, which must not be omitted, as Herbastine inculcates, Book I, Julius Caesar Claudinas, a physician, for a nobleman in Poland, Melancholy Given, advises him to dwell in a house inclining to the east, and, by all means, to provide the air be clear and sweet, which Montanus counselleth the Earl of Montfort, his patient, to inhabit a pleasant house, and in a good air. If it be so, the natural site may not be altered of our city, town, village, yet by artificial means it may be helped. In hot countries, therefore, they make the streets of their cities very narrow, all over Spain, Africa, Italy, Greece, and many cities of France, in Languedoc, especially, and Provence, those southern parts. Montpellier, the habitation and university of physicians, is so built with high houses, narrow streets, to divert the sun's scalding rays, which Tacitus commends, as most agreeing to their health, because the height of buildings and narrowness of streets keep away the sunbeams. Some cities use galleries, or arched cloisters, towards the street, as Damascus, Bologna, Padua, Bern in Switzerland, Westchester with us, as well to avoid tempests, as the sun's scorching heat. They build on high hills, in hot countries, for more air, or to the seaside, as Bayei, Naples, etc. In our northern countries, we are opposite. We commend straight, broad, open, fair streets, as most befitting and agreeing to our climb. We build in bottoms for warmth, and that site of Mitalini, in the island of Lesbos, in the Aegean Sea, which Vitruvius so much discomends, magnificently built with fair houses, said imprudenter Positan, unadvisedly cited, 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 climbs. Of that artificial site of houses, I have sufficiently disgorced. 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. Kratos, a German, commands east and south site, disallowing cold air and northern winds, in this case rainy weather and misty days, free from putrefaction, fends, bogs, and muck hills. If the air be such, open no windows, come not abroad. Montanus will have his patient not to 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, he must not open a casement in bad weather, or in a boisterous season, 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 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. A clear air cheers up the spirits, exhilarates the mind, a thick, black, misty, tempestuous, contracts over throws. Great heat is therefore to be taken at what times we walk, how we place our windows, nights, 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 accepted which brags of her stately glazed palaces, they use paper windows to like purpose, and lie sub-deo in the top of their flat-roofed houses, so sleeping under the canopy of heaven. In some parts of 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 Costosa, the house of Cesareo 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, however, is profitable and good, still to be made hot and moist, and to be seasoned with sweet perfumes, pleasant and lightsome as it may be. To have roses, violets, and sweet smelling flowers ever in their windows, poses in their hand. Laurentius commands water lilies, a vessel of warm water, to evaporate in the room, and will make a more delightful perfume, if there be added orange flowers, pills of citrons, rosemary, cloves, bays, rosewater, rose vinegar, benzoin, lordenum, styrax, and such-like gums, which make a pleasant and acceptable perfume. Bessardus Byzantinus prefers the smoke of Juniper to melancholy persons, which is in great request with us at Oxford, to sweeten our chambers. Guanarius prescribes the air to be moistened with water, and sweet herbs boiled in it, vine and sallow leaves, etc. 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 increase of the humour. Although our ordinary air be good by nature or art, yet it is not a miss, 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. Leo Affer 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. Lipsius, Zwinga and some others add as much of ordinary travel. No man, say, Lipsius, in an epistle to Lanoius, the noble friend of his, now ready to make a voyage, can be such a stock or stone, whom that pleasant speculation of countries, cities, towns, rivers, will not effect. Seneca, the philosopher, was infinitely taken with the sight of Scipio Africanus' house, near Linterna, to view those old buildings, cisterns, baths, tombs, etc. And Hale was tully pleased with the sight of Athens to behold those ancient and fair buildings, with the remembrance of their worthy inhabitants. Paulus Imilius, 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 Livy describes it, made a pleasant peregrination all over Greece, accompanied with his sons 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, etc. He took great content, exceeding delight in that his voyage, as who doth not that shall attempt the like, though his travel be adiaktationim, magisquamad usum republicai, as 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, 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. In so much that Rassus 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, chapter 36, and many neoterics of the same mind. Celsus advised him, therefore, that will continue his health, to have valium vitae genus, diversity of callings, occupations, to be busyed about, 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 Comasius contends, book 2, chapter 7, De Salle. The citizens of Barcino, say 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 Zygina, 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 Perra 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 delights and prospects, as well within land as by sea, as Hermann and Rama in Palestina, Colalto in Italy, the top of Maguetus, or Acrocorinthus, that old decayed castle in Corinth, from which Peloponnesus, Greece, the Ionian, and the Gnc's 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 Nileus as that great city, five Italian miles long, and two broad by the riverside. 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, Beaver Castle, Rodway Grange, Walsby in Lincolnshire, where I lately received a real kindness by the munificence of the right honourable, my noble lady and patroness, the Lady Francis, 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 I was born, and Hanbury in Staffordshire, contiguous to which is Fowld, a pleasant village, and an ancient patrimony belonging to our family, now in the possession of mine elder brother William Burton, Esquire. Barkley the Scott 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 subiectum forum de Spicere, to oversee a fair, a market place, or out of a pleasant window into some thorough fair street, to behold a continual concourse, a promiscuous route 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. Constantine the Emperor, Book 18, Chapter 13, Ex Leontio, holds it an only cure for rotten sheep, and any manner of sick cattle. Lilius Arfonte Aigubinus, that great doctor, at the latter end of many of his consultations. As commonly he doth set down what success his physics had. In melancholy, most especially approves of this above all other remedies whatsoever, as appears in consultation 69, consultation 229, etc. Many other things helped, but change of air was that which wrought the cure, and did most good. End of Section 11, Section 12 of the Anatomy of Melancholy, Volume 2. This is a LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For further information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Anatomy of Melancholy, Volume 2 by Robert Burton, Section 12, Partition 2, Section 2, Member 4, Part 1. 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 increases and decreases, 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, hereon prescribes Rusticus the monk, the TB always occupied about some business or other, that the devil do not find him idle. Seneca would have a man do something, though it be to no purpose. Xenophon wisheth one rather to play at tables, dice, or make a gesture of himself, though he might be far better employed, than do nothing. The 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 given account of their time, to prevent those grievous mischiefs that come by idleness, for as fodder, whip, and berthen belong to the ass, so meet correction and work unto the servant. Ecclesiasticus 33, 23 The Turks enjoin all men whatsoever, of what degree, to be of some trade or other. The grand signor himself is not excused. In our memory, saith Sabelikus, Muhammad 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. 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 discrete 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, frugues consumerenatus, to have no necessary employment, to busy himself about in church and commonwealth, some few governors exempted, but to rise to eat, etc., to spend his days in hawking, hunting, etc., and such like desports and recreations, 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 dominiers, almost all over Europe, amongst our great ones. They know not how to spend their time, desports accepted, which are all their business, what to do, or otherwise how to bestow themselves, like our modern Frenchman, 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. As one freely taxes 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 there can be no better cure than continual business, as Rassus holds, to have some employment or other, which may set their mind a work, 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, Guarnierius allows that exercise which is gentle, and still after those ordinary frications, which must be used every morning. Montaltus, chapter 26, and Jason Pratensis use almost the same words. Highly commanding exercise, if it be moderate, a wonderful help, so used, Crito 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, in so much that Galen prefers exercise before all physics, rectification of diet, or any regimen in what kind so ever, tis nature's physician. Furgentius, out of Gordonius, 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, or at any time when the body is empty. Montanus, consultation 31, prescribes it every morning to his patient, and that, as Calenus adds, after he hath done his ordinary needs, rubbed his body, washed his hands and face, combed his head, and gargarized. What kind of exercise he should use, Galen tells us, book two and three, de sanitate tuenda, and in what measure, till the body be ready to sweat and roused up. Ad ruborem, some say, known 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. Hippocrates confounds them, but that is in some cases, to some peculiar men, the most forbid, and by no means will have it go farther than a beginning sweat, as being 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 with indoors, some natural, some are artificial. Amongst bodily exercises Galen commends ludum parwipilii to play at ball, be it with the hand or racket, in tennis courts or otherwise, it exercises 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 Aganela, a fair maid of Corcaira, was the inventor of it, for she presented the first ball that ever was made to Nelsecata, the daughter of King Alcinois, and taught her how to use it. The ordinary sports which are used abroad are hawking, hunting, hilares, whenandi labores, one calls them, because they recreate body and mind. Another, the best exercise that is, by which alone many have been freed from all feral diseases. Haggisipus, Book 1, Chapter 37, relates of Herod that he was eased of a grievous melancholy by that means. Plato, VII, De Legibus, highly magnifies it, dividing it into three parts, by land, water, air. Xenophon, in Syrupedia, graces it with a great name, Deorum munus, the gift of the gods, a princely sport, which they have ever used, saith Langius, Ep. 59, Book 2, as well for health as pleasure, and do at this day it being the sole almost an ordinary sport of our noblemen in Europe and elsewhere all over the world. Bohimas stars it therefore Studium nobilium, comuniter whenantur, quad sibi soli sliccare contentund. It is all their study, their exercise, ordinary business, all their talk, and indeed some dope too much after it. They can do nothing else, discourse of naught else. Paulus Jovius doth in some sort tax our 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 effected as the other, by some preferred. It was never heard of amongst the Romans, invented some twelve hundred years since, and first mentioned by Firmicus, Book 5, Chapter 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 books written of it. It is a wonder to hear 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 despot, how much time is spent at Adrienople alone every year to that purpose. The 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, etc., and such a one was sent for a present to Queen Elizabeth. Some reclaim ravens, castrilles, pies, etc., and man them for their pleasures. Fowling is more troublesome, but all outers delights them to some sorts of men, be it with guns, lime, nets, glades, jins, strings, baits, pitfalls, pipes, calls, stalking horses, setting dogs, decoy ducks, etc., or otherwise. Some much delight to take larks with daynets, small birds with chaffnets, plovers, partridge, herons, snipe, etc. Henry III, King of Castile, as Mariana the Jesuit reports of him. Book III, Chapter VII, was much affected 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 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 choreography of his Isle of Huna, and Castle of Uraniburg, puts down his nets and manner of catching small birds as an ornament and recreation wherein he himself was sometimes employed. Fishing is a kind of hunting by water, be it with nets, wheels, baits, angling, or otherwise, and yields all out as much pleasure to some men as dogs or hawks. When they draw their fish upon the bank, saith Nicolaos Hensilius, Cilessiografii, Chapter III, speaking of that extraordinary delight his countrymen took in fishing and in making of pools. James Dubravius, that Moravian, in his book De Piscini set Piscule, telleth how traveling by the highwayside in Silesia he found a nobleman booted up to the groins, wading himself, pulling the nets and laboring as much as any fisherman of them all. And when some be like objected to him the baseness of his office, he excused himself 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 armholes 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 Sollertia Animalium, speaks against all fishing as a filthy base in liberal 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 slights, etc., 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 hens, coots, etc., 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 Ascom recommends, in a just volume, and hath in former times been enjoined by statute, as a defensive exercise, and an honour to our land, as well may witness our victories in France. Keelpins, trunks, quits, pitching bars, hurling, wrestling, leaping, running, fencing, mustering, swimming, wasters, foils, football, balloon, quintane, etc., 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 despots 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 Areteus, Deambulatio pera moina luca, to make a petty progress, a merry journey, now and then, with some good companions, to visit friends, see cities, castles, towns, wizere, saipamnes, nitidos, pera moina que tempe, et placida sumi sectar in montibus auras, to see the pleasant fields, the crystal fountains, and take the gentle air amongst the mountains, to walk amongst orchards, gardens, powers, mounts and arbres, artificial wildernesses, green thickets, arches, groves, lawns, rivulets, fountains, and such like pleasant places, like that Antiochian Daphne, brooks, pools, fishponds, between wood and water, in a fair meadow, by a riverside, obi warii awium cantationes, florum colores, frutiques, et cetera, to disport in some pleasant plain, park, run up a steep hill sometimes, or sit in a shady seat, must needs be a delectable recreation, autus principis, et domus ad delectationem factor, cum silwa monte et piscina, wilgo la montaña, the prince's garden at Ferrara, scottus highly magnifies, with the groves, mountains, ponds, for a delectable prospect, he was much affected with it, a persian paradise, or pleasant park, could not be more delectable in his sight. St. Bernard, in the description of his monastery, is almost ravished with the pleasures of it. The sick man, saith he, sits upon a green bank, and when the dog-star parketh the plains and dries up rivers, he lies in a shady bower, fronte subar borea, ferwentia temperat astra, and feeds his eyes with variety of objects, herbs, trees, to comfort his misery. He receives many delights and smells, and fills his ears with that sweet and various harmony of birds. Good God, saith he, what a company of pleasures hast thou made for man. He that should be admitted on a sudden to the sight of such a palace as that of Escurial in Spain, or to that which the moors built at Granada, Fontainebleau in France, the Turks' gardens in his Ceraleo, wherein all manner of birds and beasts are kept for pleasure, wolves, bears, lynxes, tigers, lions, elephants, etc., or upon the banks of that Thracian Bosphorus, the Pope's Belvedere in Rome, as pleasing as those haughty penciles in Babylon, or that Indian King's delightsome garden in Eilean, or those famous gardens of the Lord Cantaloupe in France, could not choose, though he were never so ill-paid, but be much recreated for the time, or many of our nobleman's gardens at home. To take a boat in a pleasant evening, and with music to row upon the waters, which Plutarch so much applauds, Eilean admires upon the river Pinaeus, in those Thessalian fields beset with green bays, where birds so sweetly sing that passengers enchanted, as it were, with their heavenly music, omnium laborum et curarum oblis cantor, forget forthwith all labours, care and grief, or in a gondola through the Grand Canal in Venice, to see those goodly palaces must needs refresh and give content to a melancholy dull spirit, or to see those inner rooms of a fair-built and sumptuous edifice, as that of the Persian kings, so much renowned by Diodorus and Coutius, in which all was almost beaten gold, chairs, stools, thrones, tabernacles, and pillars of gold, plain trees and vines of gold, grapes of precious stones, and all the other ornaments of pure gold, forget Gemma floris et jaspide fulva supellex, strata micantirio, with sweet odours and perfumes, generous wines, oppiparous fare, etc., besides the gallantist young men, the fairest virgins, poellae, schittolae, ministrantes, the rarest beauties the world could afford, and those set out with costly and curious attires, ad stuporem usque expectantium, with exquisite music, as in Trimalchio's house, in every chamber, sweet voices, ever-sounding day and night, incomparabilis luxus, all delights and pleasures, in each kind which to please the senses could possibly be devised or had, con viues coronati, deliquiis ebrii, etc. Telemachus, in Homer, is brought in as one ravished almost, at the sight of that magnificent palace, and rich furniture of Menelaus, when he beheld iris ful gorem et resonantia tectocorusco, auro aque lectronitido, sector qualefanto, argento que simul, talis yois ardues sedes, aulaque calicolum stelen splendeschito lumpo, such glittering of gold and brightest brass to shine, clear amber, silver, pure, and ivory so fine, Jupiter's lofty palace, where the gods do dwell, was even such a one, and did it not excel. It will, luxare animus, refresh the soul of man, to see fair-built cities, streets, theatres, temples, obelisques, etc. The temple of Jerusalem was so fairly built of white marble, with so many pyramids covered with gold, was so glorious and so glistened afar, that the spectators might not well abide the sight of it, but the inner parts were also curiously set out with cedar, gold, jewels, etc., as he said of Cleopatra's palace in Egypt, krasum quetrabes absconderat aurum, that the beholders were amazed. What so pleasant as to see some pageant or sight go by, as at coronations, weddings, and such-like celebrities, to see an ambassador or a prince met, received, entertained with masks, shows, fireworks, etc., to see two kings fight in single combat, as Porus and Alexander, Knut and Edmund Ironside, Skanderbeg and Ferrat Bassa the Turk, when not on a alone, but life itself is at stake, as the poet of Hector. To behold a battlefort, like that of Cressy, or Agincourt, or Poitiers, Clariorem, to see one of Caesar's triumphs in old Rome revived, or the like, to be present at an interview as that famous of Henry VIII and Francis I, so much renowned all over Europe, it. No age ever saw the like. So infinitely pleasant are such shows, to the sight of which often times they will come hundreds of miles, give any money for a place, and remember many years after with singular delight. Baudin, when he was ambassador in England, said he saw the nobleman go in their robes to the Parliament House, summa cum yucunditate widimus. He was much affected with the sight of it. Pomponius Columna, saith Jovius in his life, saw 13 Frenchmen, and so many Italians once fight for a whole army, quaducundissimum spectaculum in the pleasantest sight that ever he saw in his life. Who would not have been affected with such a spectacle? Or that single combat of Breot, the Frenchman, and Antony Schetz, a Dutchman, before the walls of Silvadoukis in Brabant, Anno 1600. They were twenty-two horse on the one side, as many on the other, which, like Livy's Horatii, Tocquati and Corvini, fought for their own glory and country's honour, in the sight and view of their whole city and army. When Julius Caesar wore about the banks of Rome, there came a barbarian prince to see him and the Roman army, and when he had beheld Caesar a good while. I see the gods now, saith he, which before I heard of. Nec felicurem ullam witei mei out optawi out sensi diem. It was the happiest day that ever he had in his life. Such a sight alone were able of itself to drive away melancholy. If not for ever, yet it must needs expel it for a time. Radzivillus was much taken with the Pasha's palace in Cairo, and amongst many other objects which that palace afforded, with that solemnity of cutting the banks of the Nile, by Ibram Pasha, when it overflowed. Besides two or three hundred gilded galleys on the water, he saw two millions of men gathered together on the land, with turbans as white as snow, and twaza goodly sight. The very reading of feasts, triumphs, interviews, nuptials, tilts, tournaments, combats and monomachies is most acceptable and pleasant. Franciscus Modius hath made a large collection of such solemnities in two great tomes, which whoso will may peruse. The inspection alone of those curious iconographies of temples and palaces, as that of the Lateran Church in Alberto Stura, that of the Temple of Jerusalem in Josephus, Adricomius and Vilal Pandus, that of the Escurial in Guadas, of Diana at Ephesus in Pliny, Nero's Golden Palace in Rome, Justinians in Constantinople, that Peruvian Dugos in Cusco, known Abhomini bus, said Adi Moniis Constructum Vidiatur, Saint Marks in Venice Pagnatius, with many such, Priscorum Artificum Opera, Seith that Interpreter of Palsanias, the rare workmanship of those ancient Greeks in theatres, obelisks, temples, statues, gold, silver, ivory, marble images, known minore ferme cum leguntur, quam cum cernuntur, animum delettatione complent, effect one as much by reading almost as by sight. End of section 12