Robert Burton

as a man desperately swimming drowns him that comes to help him, by suretyship and borrowing they will willingly undo all their associates and allies […]. Melancholy, cold and dry, thick, black, and sour, […] is a bridle to the other two hot humours, blood and choler, preserving them in the blood, and nourishing the bones. they […] still think their melancholy to be most grievous, none so bad as they are, though it be nothing in respect […]. New books every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts... Phlebotomy, many times neglected, may do much harm to the body, when there is a manifest redundance of bad humours and melancholy blood […] As it is acceptable and conducing to most, so especially to a melancholy man […] I would for these causes wish him that is melancholy […] to impose some task upon himself, to divert his melancholy thoughts: to study the art of memory […] , or practise brachygraphy, etc., that will ask a great deal of attention […] Jacchinus […] instanceth in a patient of his, that married a young wife in a hot summer, “and so dried himself with chamber-work, that he became in short space, from melancholy, mad”: he cured him by moistening remedies. Gordonius […] confirms as much, putting the “matter of melancholy sometimes in the stomach, liver, heart, brain, spleen, myrach, hypochondries, whenas the melancholy humour resides there, or the liver is not well cleansed from melancholy blood.” Ptolemæus in his Centiloquy, Hermes, or whosoever else the author of that Tract, attributes all these symptoms, which are in melancholy men, to celestial influences they are so cholerick and tetty, that no man may speak with them, and break many times into violent passions, oaths, imprecations, and unbeseeming speeches Lactantius, in his book of Wisdom, proves them to be dizzards, fools, asses, madmen, so full of absurd and ridiculous tenets and brain-sick positions, that to his thinking never any old woman doted worse. Massinissa made many inward parts of Barbarie and Numidia in Africk (before his time incult and horrid) fruitful and battable by this means. where good government is, […] there all things thrive and prosper […] : where it is otherwise, all things are ugly to behold, incult, barbarous, uncivil, a paradise is turned to a wilderness. these gigantical Cyclops will transcend spheres An asse overwhelmed a thisselwarps nest; the little bird pecked his gaul'd back in revenge […]. others impotent, of a cold and dry constitution, cannot sustain those gymnics without great hurt done to their own bodies […] all is naught, full of imposture, incertainty, and doth generally more harm then good. he is of that power, majesty, omnipotency, and dominion, that no creature can withstand him. 'tis ordinary to see strange uncouth sights by catoptrics; who knows not that if in a dark room the light be admitted at one only little hole, and a paper or glass put upon it, the sun shining will represent on the opposite wall all such objects as are illuminated by his rays? If you will have them spagirically prepared, look in Oswaldus Crollius, Basil. Chymica. neat gardens, full of exotic, versicolour, diversely varied, sweet-smelling flowers, and plants in all kinds […]. By this means you many define ex ungue leonem, as the diverb is, by his thumb alone the bigness of Hercules […] Italy, a paradise for horses, a hell for women, as the diverb goes. If […] that I am a younger brother, basely born […], of mean parentage, a dirt-dauber’s son, “am I therefore to be blamed?” It will laxare animos, refresh the soul of man, to see fair-built cities, streets, theatres, temples, obelisks, etc. a comely grace, courtesies, gentle salutations, cringes, a mincing gait, a decent and an affected pace, are most powerful enticers a fair-built and sumptuous edifice, as that of the Persian kings so much renowned by Diodorus and Curtius, in which all was almost beaten gold […], with sweet odours and perfumes, generous wines, opiparous fare, etc. Assation is a concoction of the inward moisture by heat; his opposite is semiustulation. All black wines, over-hot, compound, strong, thick drinks, as muscadine, malmsey, alicant, rumney, brown bastard, metheglin, and the like […] Many such pranks are played by our Jesuits, sometimes in their own habits, sometimes in others, – to inescate and beguile young women. When that epitomizer of Trogus had to the full described and set out King Ptolemy's riot as a chief engine and instrument of his overthrow the eyes […] are the chief seats of love, […] as James Lernutius hath facetely expressed in an elegant ode of his […] those loathsome and fulsome filthy potions, heteroclitical pills (so he cals them), horse medicines […] A chorographer of ours […] gives no other reason but this, luxus omnia dissipavit, riot hath consumed all. Discontents and grievances […] peculiar to private men, as cares, crosses, losses, death of friends, poverty, want, sickness, orbities, abuses, […] Hyperbolical exornations […] many much affect. as a corollary to conclude the feast and continue their mirth, a grace-cup came in to cheer their hearts, and they drank healths to one another again and again. Odoraments to smell to, of rose-water, violet flowers, balm, rose-cakes, vinegar, etc., do much recreate the brains and spirits […] because many families are compelled to live niggardly, exhaust and undone by great dowers, none shall be given at all, or very little […]. To see […] a wittol wink at his wife's honesty, and too perspicuous in all other affairs […] Diet, […] comprehends those sixe non naturall things, which I have before specified, are especiall causes, and being rectified, a sole or chiefe part of the Cure. […] Which howsoever I treat of, as proper to the Meridian of melancholy, yet neverthelesse that which is here said, will generally serve most other diseases, and ease them likewise, if it be observed. Nature binds all creatures to love their young ones; an hen to preserve her brood will run upon a lion, an hind will fight with a bull, a sow with a bear, a silly sheep with a fox. A sow pigge by chance sucked a Brach, and when she was growne, would miraculously hunt all manner of Deere, and that as well or rather better then any ordinary hound.