travelled but in map or card, in which my unconfined thoughts have freely expatiated, as having ever been especially delighted with the study of cosmography. Saturn was lord of my geniture, culmina ting, &c. and Mars principal significator of manner, in partile conjunction with mine ascendant; both fortunate in their houses, &c. I am not poor, I am not rich; nihil est, nihil deest; I have little, I want nothing: all my treasure is in Minerva's tower. Greater preferment as I could never get, so am I not in debt for it. I have a competency (laus Deo) from my noble and munificent patrons. Though I live still a collegiate student, as Democritus in his garden, and lead a monastic life, ipse mihi theatrum, sequestered from those tumults and troubles of the world, et tanquam in speculá positus (as he said) in some high place above you all, like stoicus sapiens, omnia sæcula preterita præsentiaque videns, uno velut intuitur. I hear and see what is done abroad. How others run, ride turmoil, and macerate themselves in court and country. Far from those wrangling law-suits, aulæ runitatem, fori ambitionem, ridere mecum soleo: I laugh at all, only secure, lest my suit go amiss, my ships perish, corn and cattle miscarry, trade decay, I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for; a mere spectator of other men's fortunes and adventures, and how they act their parts, which me thinks are diversely presented unto me, as from : a common theatre or scene. I hear new news every day and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, &c. daily musters and preparations, and such like, which these tempestuous times afford; battles fought, so many men slain, mo→ nomachies, shipwrecks, piracies, and sea-fights; peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms-a vast con fusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances, are daily brought to our ears: new books every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion, &c. Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays; then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating, tricks, robberies, enormous villanies of all kinds, funerals, burials, death of princes, new discoveries, expeditions; now comical, now tragical matters. To day we hear of new lords and officers created, to-morrow of some great men deposed, and then again of fresh honours conferred: one is let loose, another imprisoned: one purchaseth, another breaketh: he thrives, his neighbour turns bankrupt: now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps, &c. Thus I daily hear, and such like, both private and public news. Amidst the gallantry and misery of the world, jollity, pride, perplexities and cares, simplicity and villany, subtlety, knavery, candour, and integrity, mutually mixt and offering themselves, I rub on, privus privatus: as I have still lived, so I now continue, statu quo prius, left to a solitary life, and mine own domestic discontents; saving that sometimes, ne quid mentiar, as Diogenes went into the city, and Democritus to the haven to see fashions, I did for my recreation now and then walk abroad, look into the world, and could not choose but make some little observation, non tam sagax observator, ac simplex recitator, not, as they did, to scoff or laugh at all, but with a mixt passion. Bilem sæpe jocum vestri movere tumultus. I did sometime laugh and scoff with Lucian, and satirically tax with Menippus, lament with Heraclitus; sometimes again I was petulanti splene cachinno, and then again, urere bilis jecur; I was much moved to see that abuse which I could not amend: in which passion, howsoever I may sympathize with him or them, it is for no such respect I shroud myself un der his name; but either in an unknown habit, to assume a little more liberty and freedom of speech, or if you will needs know, for that reason and only. respect which Hippocrates relates at large in his epistle to Damegetus, wherein he doth express, how, coming to visit him one day, he found Democritus in his garden at Abdera, in the suburbs, under a shady bower, with a book on his knees, busy at his study, sometime writing, sometime walking. The subject of his book was melancholy and madness: about him lay the carcasses of many several beasts, newly by him cut up and anatomized; not that he did contemn God's creatures, as he told Hippocrates, but to find out the seat of this atra bilis, or melancholy, whence it proceeds, and how it was engendered in men's bodies, to the intent he might better cure it in himself, by his writings and observations teach others how to prevent and avoid it. Which good intent of his Hippocrates highly commended; Democritus junior is therefore bold to imitate, and because he left it imperfect, and it is now lost, quasi succenturiator Democriti, to revive again, prosecute, and finish in this treatise. The following passage, which describes the commencement of melancholy, is exceedingly beautiful, rational, and just. Vol. i. p. 126... и h VOL. II. the one part clothed in red, the other in sky-colour, And when the emperor hunteth, one of these captains goeth with his men and dogs on the righthand, the other on the left, compassing a great quantity of ground, that not a beast can escape them. From October to March, they are bound daily to send in a thousand head of beasts and birds. He hath also, when he travelleth, ten thousand falconers, divided in divers companies, himself abiding in a chamber carried upon four elephants, whence he may see the game, having also his tents pitched for his solace near thereby. None may carry bawk or hunting-dog out of his dominion, nor may hawk or hunt near the court, by many days journeys; nor at all in their times of breeding, from March to October. But he that list to be more fully informed herein, let him read M. Paulus and others, which have written of this argument. It is religion to us, further to suspend our discourse of religion. -The portion which Hakluyt contributed to these four volumes, amounts perhaps, in the whole, to about a volume; and consists of his MS. remains, of which Purchas got posses |