MEMB. III.
Air rectified. With a digression of the Air.
As a long-winged hawk, when he is first whistled off the fist, mounts
aloft, and for his pleasure fetcheth many a circuit in the air, still
soaring higher and higher, till he be come to his full pitch, and in the
end when the game is sprung, comes down amain, and stoops upon a sudden: so
will I, having now come at last into these ample fields of air, wherein I
may freely expatiate and exercise myself for my recreation, awhile rove,
wander round about the world, mount aloft to those ethereal orbs and
celestial spheres, and so descend to my former elements again. In which
progress I will first see whether that relation of the friar of [2997]
Oxford be true, concerning those northern parts under the pole (if I meet
obiter with the wandering Jew, Elias Artifex, or Lucian's
Icaromenippus, they shall be my guides) whether there be such 4. Euripes,
and a great rock of loadstones, which may cause the needle in the compass
still to bend that way, and what should be the true cause of the variation
of the compass, [2998]is it a magnetical rock, or the pole-star, as Cardan
will; or some other star in the bear, as Marsilius Ficinus; or a magnetical
meridian, as Maurolieus; Vel situs in vena terrae, as Agricola; or the
nearness of the next continent, as Cabeus will; or some other cause, as
Scaliger, Cortesius, Conimbricenses, Peregrinus contend; why at the Azores
it looks directly north, otherwise not? In the Mediterranean or Levant (as
some observe) it varies 7. grad. by and by 12. and then 22. In the Baltic
Seas, near Rasceburg in Finland, the needle runs round, if any ships come
that way, though [2999]Martin Ridley write otherwise, that the needle near
the Pole will hardly be forced from his direction. 'Tis fit to be inquired
whether certain rules may be made of it, as 11. grad. Lond. variat. alibi
36. &c. and that which is more prodigious, the variation varies in the same
place, now taken accurately, 'tis so much after a few years quite altered
from that it was: till we have better intelligence, let our Dr. Gilbert,
and Nicholas [3000]Cabeus the Jesuit, that have both written great volumes
of this subject, satisfy these inquisitors. Whether the sea be open and
navigable by the Pole arctic, and which is the likeliest way, that of
Bartison the Hollander, under the Pole itself, which for some reasons I
hold best: or by Fretum Davis, or Nova Zembla. Whether [3001]Hudson's
discovery be true of a new found ocean, any likelihood of Button's Bay in
50. degrees, Hubberd's Hope in 60. that of ut ultra near Sir Thomas Roe's
welcome in Northwest Fox, being that the sea ebbs and flows constantly
there 15. foot in 12. hours, as our [3002]new cards inform us that
California is not a cape, but an island, and the west winds make the neap
tides equal to the spring, or that there be any probability to pass by the
straits of Anian to China, by the promontory of Tabin. If there be, I shall
soon perceive whether [3003]Marcus Polus the Venetian's narration be true
or false, of that great city of Quinsay and Cambalu; whether there be any
such places, or that as [3004]Matth. Riccius the Jesuit hath written,
China and Cataia be all one, the great Cham of Tartary and the king of
China be the same; Xuntain and Quinsay, and the city of Cambalu be that new
Peking, or such a wall 400 leagues long to part China from Tartary: whether
[3005]Presbyter John be in Asia or Africa; M. Polus Venetus puts him in
Asia, [3006]the most received opinion is, that he is emperor of the
Abyssines, which of old was Ethiopia, now Nubia, under the equator in
Africa. Whether [3007]Guinea be an island or part of the continent, or
that hungry [3008]Spaniard's discovery of Terra Australis Incognita, or
Magellanica, be as true as that of Mercurius Britannius, or his of
Utopia, or his of Lucinia. And yet in likelihood it may be so, for
without all question it being extended from the tropic of Capricorn to the
circle Antarctic, and lying as it doth in the temperate zone, cannot choose
but yield in time some flourishing kingdoms to succeeding ages, as America
did unto the Spaniards. Shouten and Le Meir have done well in the discovery
of the Straits of Magellan, in finding a more convenient passage to Mare
pacificum: methinks some of our modern argonauts should prosecute the
rest. As I go by Madagascar, I would see that great bird [3009]ruck, that
can carry a man and horse or an elephant, with that Arabian phoenix
described by [3010]Adricomius; see the pelicans of Egypt, those Scythian
gryphes in Asia: and afterwards in Africa examine the fountains of Nilus,
whether Herodotus, [3011]Seneca, Plin. lib. 5. cap. 9. Strabo. lib.
5. give a true cause of his annual flowing, [3012]Pagaphetta discourse
rightly of it, or of Niger and Senegal; examine Cardan, [3013]Scaliger's
reasons, and the rest. Is it from those Etesian winds, or melting of snow
in the mountains under the equator (for Jordan yearly overflows when the
snow melts in Mount Libanus), or from those great dropping perpetual
showers which are so frequent to the inhabitants within the tropics, when
the sun is vertical, and cause such vast inundations in Senegal, Maragnan,
Oronoco and the rest of those great rivers in Zona Torrida, which have all
commonly the same passions at set times: and by good husbandry and policy
hereafter no doubt may come to be as populous, as well tilled, as fruitful,
as Egypt itself or Cauchinthina? I would observe all those motions of the
sea, and from what cause they proceed, from the moon (as the vulgar hold)
or earth's motion, which Galileus, in the fourth dialogue of his system of
the world, so eagerly proves, and firmly demonstrates; or winds, as [3014]
some will. Why in that quiet ocean of Zur, in mari pacifico, it is scarce
perceived, in our British seas most violent, in the Mediterranean and Red
Sea so vehement, irregular, and diverse? Why the current in that Atlantic
Ocean should still be in some places from, in some again towards the north,
and why they come sooner than go? and so from Moabar to Madagascar in that
Indian Ocean, the merchants come in three weeks, as [3015]Scaliger
discusseth, they return scarce in three months, with the same or like
winds: the continual current is from east to west. Whether Mount Athos,
Pelion, Olympus, Ossa, Caucasus, Atlas, be so high as Pliny, Solinus, Mela
relate, above clouds, meteors, ubi nec aurae nec venti spirant (insomuch
that they that ascend die suddenly very often, the air is so subtile,) 1250
paces high, according to that measure of Dicearchus, or 78 miles
perpendicularly high, as Jacobus Mazonius, sec. 3. et 4. expounding
that place of Aristotle about Caucasus; and as [3016]Blancanus the Jesuit
contends out of Clavius and Nonius demonstrations de Crepusculis: or
rather 32 stadiums, as the most received opinion is; or 4 miles, which the
height of no mountain doth perpendicularly exceed, and is equal to the
greatest depths of the sea, which is, as Scaliger holds, 1580 paces, Exer.
38, others 100 paces. I would see those inner parts of America, whether
there be any such great city of Manoa, or Eldorado, in that golden empire,
where the highways are as much beaten (one reports) as between Madrid and
Valadolid in Spain; or any such Amazons as he relates, or gigantic
Patagones in Chica; with that miraculous mountain [3017]Ybouyapab in the
Northern Brazil, cujus jugum sternitur in amoenissimam planitiem, &c. or
that of Pariacacca so high elevated in Peru. [3018]The peak of Tenerife
how high it is? 70 miles, or 50 as Patricius holds, or 9 as Snellius
demonstrates in his Eratosthenes: see that strange [3019]Cirknickzerksey
lake in Carniola, whose waters gush so fast out of the ground, that they
will overtake a swift horseman, and by and by with as incredible celerity
are supped up: which Lazius and Wernerus make an argument of the Argonauts
sailing under ground. And that vast den or hole called [3020]Esmellen in
Muscovia, quae visitur horriendo hiatu, &c. which if anything casually
fall in, makes such a roaring noise, that no thunder, or ordnance, or
warlike engine can make the like; such another is Gilber's Cave in Lapland,
with many the like. I would examine the Caspian Sea, and see where and how
it exonerates itself, after it hath taken in Volga, Jaxares, Oxus, and
those great rivers; at the mouth of Oby, or where? What vent the Mexican
lake hath, the Titicacan in Peru, or that circular pool in the vale of
Terapeia, of which Acosta l. 3. c. 16. hot in a cold country, the
spring of which boils up in the middle twenty foot square, and hath no vent
but exhalation: and that of Mare mortuum in Palestine, of Thrasymene, at
Peruzium in Italy: the Mediterranean itself. For from the ocean, at the
Straits of Gibraltar, there is a perpetual current into the Levant, and so
likewise by the Thracian Bosphorus out of the Euxine or Black Sea, besides
all those great rivers of Nile, Po, Rhone, &c. how is this water consumed,
by the sun or otherwise? I would find out with Trajan the fountains of
Danube, of Ganges, Oxus, see those Egyptian pyramids, Trajan's bridge,
Grotto de Sybilla, Lucullus's fishponds, the temple of Nidrose, &c.
(And, if I could, observe what becomes of swallows, storks, cranes,
cuckoos, nightingales, redstarts, and many other kind of singing birds,
water-fowls, hawks, &c. some of them are only seen in summer, some in
winter; some are observed in the [3021]snow, and at no other times, each
have their seasons. In winter not a bird is in Muscovy to be found, but at
the spring in an instant the woods and hedges are full of them, saith
[3022]Herbastein: how comes it to pass? Do they sleep in winter, like
Gesner's Alpine mice; or do they lie hid (as [3023]Olaus affirms) in the
bottom of lakes and rivers, spiritum continentes? often so found by
fishermen in Poland and Scandia, two together, mouth to mouth, wing to
wing; and when the spring comes they revive again, or if they be brought
into a stove, or to the fireside. Or do they follow the sun, as Peter
Martyr legat Babylonica l. 2. manifestly convicts, out of his own
knowledge; for when he was ambassador in Egypt, he saw swallows, Spanish
kites, [3024]and many such other European birds, in December and January
very familiarly flying, and in great abundance, about Alexandria, ubi
floridae tunc arbores ac viridaria. Or lie they hid in caves, rocks, and
hollow trees, as most think, in deep tin-mines or sea-cliffs, as [3025]Mr.
Carew gives out? I conclude of them all, for my part, as [3026]Munster
doth of cranes and storks; whence they come, whither they go, incompertum
adhuc, as yet we know not. We see them here, some in summer, some in
winter; their coming and going is sure in the night: in the plains of Asia
(saith he) the storks meet on such a set day, he that comes last is torn in
pieces, and so they get them gone. Many strange places, Isthmi, Euripi,
Chersonesi, creeks, havens, promontories, straits, Lakes, baths, rocks,
mountains, places, and fields, where cities have been ruined or swallowed,
battles fought, creatures, sea-monsters, remora, &c. minerals, vegetals.
Zoophytes were fit to be considered in such an expedition, and amongst the
rest that of [3027]Harbastein his Tartar lamb, [3028]Hector Boethius
goosebearing tree in the orchards, to which Cardan lib. 7. cap. 36. de
rerum varietat. subscribes: [3029]Vertomannus wonderful palm, that [3030]
fly in Hispaniola, that shines like a torch in the night, that one may well
see to write; those spherical stones in Cuba which nature hath so made, and
those like birds, beasts, fishes, crowns, swords, saws, pots, &c. usually
found in the metal mines in Saxony about Mansfield, and in Poland near
Nokow and Pallukie, as [3031]Munster and others relate. Many rare
creatures and novelties each part of the world affords: amongst the rest, I
would know for a certain whether there be any such men, as Leo Suavius, in
his comment on Paracelsus de sanit. tuend. and [3032]Gaguinus records in
his description of Muscovy, that in Lucomoria, a province in Russia, lie
fast asleep as dead all winter, from the 27 of November, like frogs and
swallows, benumbed with cold, but about the 24 of April in the spring they
revive again, and go about their business. I would examine that
demonstration of Alexander Picolomineus, whether the earth's superficies be
bigger than the seas: or that of Archimedes be true, the superficies of all
water is even? Search the depth, and see that variety of sea-monsters and
fishes, mermaids, seamen, horses, &c. which it affords. Or whether that be
true which Jordanus Brunus scoffs at, that if God did not detain it, the
sea would overflow the earth by reason of his higher site, and which
Josephus Blancanus the Jesuit in his interpretation on those mathematical
places of Aristotle, foolishly fears, and in a just tract proves by many
circumstances, that in time the sea will waste away the land, and all the
globe of the earth shall be covered with waters; risum teneatis amici?
what the sea takes away in one place it adds in another. Methinks he might
rather suspect the sea should in time be filled by land, trees grow up,
carcasses, &c. that all-devouring fire, omnia devorans et consumens, will
sooner cover and dry up the vast ocean with sand and ashes. I would examine
the true seat of that terrestrial [3033]paradise, and where Ophir was
whence Solomon did fetch his gold: from Peruana, which some suppose, or
that Aurea Chersonesus, as Dominicus Niger, Arias Montanus, Goropius, and
others will. I would censure all Pliny's, Solinus', Strabo's, Sir John
Mandeville's, Olaus Magnus', Marcus Polus' lies, correct those errors in
navigation, reform cosmographical charts, and rectify longitudes, if it
were possible; not by the compass, as some dream, with Mark Ridley in his
treatise of magnetical bodies, cap. 43. for as Cabeus magnet philos.
lib. 3. cap. 4. fully resolves, there is no hope thence, yet I would
observe some better means to find them out.
I would have a convenient place to go down with Orpheus, Ulysses, Hercules,
[3034]Lucian's Menippus, at St. Patrick's purgatory, at Trophonius' den,
Hecla in Iceland, Aetna in Sicily, to descend and see what is done in the
bowels of the earth: do stones and metals grow there still? how come fir
trees to be [3035]digged out from tops of hills, as in our mosses, and
marshes all over Europe? How come they to dig up fish bones, shells, beams,
ironworks, many fathoms under ground, and anchors in mountains far remote
from all seas? [3036]Anno 1460 at Bern in Switzerland 50 fathom deep a
ship was digged out of a mountain, where they got metal ore, in which were
48 carcasses of men, with other merchandise. That such things are
ordinarily found in tops of hills, Aristotle insinuates in his meteors,
[3037]Pomponius Mela in his first book, c. de Numidia, and familiarly in
the Alps, saith [3038]Blancanus the Jesuit, the like is to be seen: came
this from earthquakes, or from Noah's flood, as Christians suppose, or is
there a vicissitude of sea and land, as Anaximenes held of old, the
mountains of Thessaly would become seas, and seas again mountains? The
whole world belike should be new moulded, when it seemed good to those
all-commanding powers, and turned inside out, as we do haycocks in harvest,
top to bottom, or bottom to top: or as we turn apples to the fire, move the
world upon his centre; that which is under the poles now, should be
translated to the equinoctial, and that which is under the torrid zone to
the circle arctic and antarctic another while, and so be reciprocally
warmed by the sun: or if the worlds be infinite, and every fixed star a
sun, with his compassing planets (as Brunus and Campanella conclude) cast
three or four worlds into one; or else of one world make three or four new,
as it shall seem to them best. To proceed, if the earth be 21,500 miles in
[3039]compass, its diameter is 7,000 from us to our antipodes, and what
shall be comprehended in all that space? What is the centre of the earth?
is it pure element only, as Aristotle decrees, inhabited (as [3040]
Paracelsus thinks) with creatures, whose chaos is the earth: or with
fairies, as the woods and waters (according to him) are with nymphs, or as
the air with spirits? Dionisiodorus, a mathematician in [3041]Pliny, that
sent a letter, ad superos after he was dead, from the centre of the
earth, to signify what distance the same centre was from the superficies
of the same, viz. 42,000 stadiums, might have done well to have satisfied
all these doubts. Or is it the place of hell, as Virgil in his Aenides,
Plato, Lucian, Dante, and others poetically describe it, and as many of our
divines think? In good earnest, Anthony Rusca, one of the society of that
Ambrosian College, in Milan, in his great volume de Inferno, lib. 1. cap.
47. is stiff in this tenet, 'tis a corporeal fire tow, cap. 5. I. 2. as
he there disputes. Whatsoever philosophers write (saith [3042]Surius)
there be certain mouths of hell, and places appointed for the punishment of
men's souls, as at Hecla in Iceland, where the ghosts of dead men are
familiarly seen, and sometimes talk with the living: God would have such
visible places, that mortal men might be certainly informed, that there be
such punishments after death, and learn hence to fear God. Kranzius Dan.
hist. lib. 2. cap. 24. subscribes to this opinion of Surius, so doth
Colerus cap. 12. lib. de immortal animae (out of the authority belike of
St. Gregory, Durand, and the rest of the schoolmen, who derive as much from
Aetna in Sicily, Lipari, Hiera, and those sulphureous vulcanian islands)
making Terra del Fuego, and those frequent volcanoes in America, of which
Acosta lib. 3. cap. 24. that fearful mount Hecklebirg in Norway, an
especial argument to prove it, [3043]where lamentable screeches and
howlings are continually heard, which strike a terror to the auditors;
fiery chariots are commonly seen to bring in the souls of men in the
likeness of crows, and devils ordinarily go in and out. Such another proof
is that place near the Pyramids in Egypt, by Cairo, as well to confirm this
as the resurrection, mentioned by [3044]Kornmannus mirac. mort. lib. 1.
cap. 30. Camerarius oper. suc. cap. 37. Bredenbachius pereg. ter.
sanct. and some others, where once a year dead bodies arise about March,
and walk, after awhile hide themselves again: thousands of people come
yearly to see them. But these and such like testimonies others reject, as
fables, illusions of spirits, and they will have no such local known place,
more than Styx or Phlegethon, Pluto's court, or that poetical Infernus,
where Homer's soul was seen hanging on a tree, &c., to which they ferried
over in Charon's boat, or went down at Hermione in Greece, compendiaria ad
Infernos via, which is the shortest cut, quia nullum a mortuis naulum eo
loci exposcunt, (saith [3045]Gerbelius) and besides there were no fees to
be paid. Well then, is it hell, or purgatory, as Bellarmine: or Limbus
patrum, as Gallucius will, and as Rusca will (for they have made maps of
it) [3046]or Ignatius parler? Virgil, sometimes bishop of Saltburg (as
Aventinus anno 745 relates) by Bonifacius bishop of Mentz was therefore
called in question, because he held antipodes (which they made a doubt
whether Christ died for) and so by that means took away the seat of hell,
or so contracted it, that it could bear no proportion to heaven, and
contradicted that opinion of Austin, Basil, Lactantius that held the earth
round as a trencher (whom Acosta and common experience more largely
confute) but not as a ball; and Jerusalem where Christ died the middle of
it; or Delos, as the fabulous Greeks feigned: because when Jupiter let two
eagles loose, to fly from the world's ends east and west, they met at
Delos. But that scruple of Bonifacius is now quite taken away by our latter
divines: Franciscus Ribera, in cap. 14. Apocalyps. will have hell a
material and local fire in the centre of the earth, 200 Italian miles in
diameter, as he defines it out of those words, Exivit sanguis de
terra—per stadia mille sexcenta, &c. But Lessius lib. 13. de moribus
divinis, cap. 24. will have this local hell far less, one Dutch mile in
diameter, all filled with fire and brimstone: because, as he there
demonstrates, that space, cubically multiplied, will make a sphere able to
hold eight hundred thousand millions of damned bodies (allowing each body
six foot square) which will abundantly suffice; Cum cerium sit, inquit,
facta subductione, non futuros centies mille milliones damnandorum. But if
it be no material fire (as Sco. Thomas, Bonaventure, Soncinas, Voscius, and
others argue) it may be there or elsewhere, as Keckerman disputes System.
Theol. for sure somewhere it is, certum est alicubi, etsi definitus
circulus non assignetur. I will end the controversy in [3047]Austin's
words, Better doubt of things concealed, than to contend about
uncertainties, where Abraham's bosom is, and hell fire: [3048]Vix a
mansuetis, a contentiosis nunquam invenitur; scarce the meek, the
contentious shall never find. If it be solid earth, 'tis the fountain of
metals, waters, which by his innate temper turns air into water, which
springs up in several chinks, to moisten the earth's superficies, and
that in a tenfold proportion (as Aristotle holds) or else these fountains
come directly from the sea, by [3049]secret passages, and so made fresh
again, by running through the bowels of the earth; and are either thick,
thin, hot, cold, as the matter or minerals are by which they pass; or as
Peter Martyr Ocean. Decad. lib. 9. and some others hold, from [3050]
abundance of rain that falls, or from that ambient heat and cold, which
alters that inward heat, and so per consequens the generation of waters.
Or else it may be full of wind, or a sulphureous innate fire, as our
meteorologists inform us, which sometimes breaking out, causeth those
horrible earthquakes, which are so frequent in these days in Japan, China,
and oftentimes swallow up whole cities. Let Lucian's Menippus consult with
or ask of Tiresias, if you will not believe philosophers, he shall clear
all your doubts when he makes a second voyage.
In the mean time let us consider of that which is sub dio, and find out a
true cause, if it be possible, of such accidents, meteors, alterations, as
happen above ground. Whence proceed that variety of manners, and a distinct
character (as it were) to several nations? Some are wise, subtile, witty;
others dull, sad and heavy; some big, some little, as Tully de Fato, Plato
in Timaeo, Vegetius and Bodine prove at large, method. cap. 5. some
soft, and some hardy, barbarous, civil, black, dun, 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? [3051]Why hath Daulis and Thebes no swallows (so Pausanius informeth
us) as well as the rest of Greece, [3052]Ithaca no hares, Pontus asses,
Scythia swine? whence comes this variety of complexions, colours, plants,
birds, beasts, [3053]metals, peculiar almost to every place? Why so many
thousand strange birds and beasts proper to America alone, as Acosta
demands lib. 4. cap. 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, kine,
horses, sheep, &c., till the Spaniards brought them, were never heard of in
those parts? How comes it to pass, that in the same site, in one latitude,
to such as are Perioeci, there should be such difference of soil,
complexion, colour, metal, air, &c. The Spaniards are white, and so are
Italians, when as the inhabitants about [3054]Caput bonae spei are
blackamoors, and yet both alike distant from the equator: nay they that
dwell in the same parallel line with these Negroes, as about the Straits of
Magellan, are white coloured, and yet some in Presbyter John's country in
Ethiopia are dun; they in Zeilan and Malabar parallel with them again
black: Manamotapa in Africa, and St. Thomas Isle are extreme hot, both
under the line, coal 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. deg. lat. sometimes hard frost and snow all summer, as
Button's Bay, &c., or by fits; and yet [3055]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 causeth this difference, and
the air that comes from it: Why then is [3056]Ister so cold near the
Euxine, Pontus, Bithynia, and all Thrace; frigidas regiones Maginus calls
them, and yet their latitude is but 42. which should be hot: [3057]
Quevira, or Nova Albion in America, bordering on the sea, was so cold in
July, that our [3058]Englishmen could hardly endure it. At Noremberga in
45. lat. all the sea is frozen ice, and yet in a more southern latitude
than ours. New England, and the island of Cambrial Colchos, which that
noble gentleman Mr. Vaughan, or Orpheus junior, 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, [3059]
Hungary and Ireland male audiunt in this kind; come to the Azores, by a
secret virtue of that air they are instantly consumed, and all our European
vermin almost, saith Ortelius. Egypt is watered with Nilus 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 Zur, or
Mare pacifico, seldom or never any. Is it from tropic stars, apertio
portarum, in the dodecotemories or constellations, the moon's mansions,
such aspects of planets, such winds, or dissolving air, or thick air, which
causeth this and the like differences of heat and cold? Bodin relates of a
Portugal ambassador, that coming from [3060]Lisbon to [3061]Danzig in
Spruce, found greater heat there than at any time at home. Don Garcia de
Sylva, legate to Philip III., king of Spain, residing at Ispahan in Persia,
1619, in his letter to the Marquess of Bedmar, makes mention of greater
cold in Ispahan, whose lat. is 31. gr. 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 [3062]Acosta describes, most pleasant and
fertile. Arica in Chile is by report one of the sweetest places that ever
the sun shined on, Olympus terrae, a heaven on earth: how incomparably do
some extol Mexico in Nova Hispania, Peru, Brazil, &c., 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 [3063]country, by reason
of the site to seas, hills or dales, want of water, nature of soil, and the
like: as in Spain Arragon is aspera et sicca, harsh and evil inhabited;
Estremadura is dry, sandy, barren most part, extreme hot by reason of his
plains; Andalusia another paradise; Valencia a most pleasant air, and
continually green; so is it about [3064]Granada, on the one side fertile
plains, on the other, continual snow to be seen all summer long on the hill
tops. That their houses in the Alps are three quarters of the year covered
with snow, who knows not? That Tenerife is so cold at the top, extreme hot
at the bottom: Mons Atlas in Africa, Libanus in Palestine, with many such,
tantos inter ardores fidos nivibus, [3065]Tacitus calls them, and
Radzivilus epist. 2. fol. 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 paucam solarium radiorum refractionem, as
Serrarius answers, com. in. 3. cap. Josua quaest. 5. Abulensis quaest.
37. In the heat of summer, in the king's palace in Escurial, the air is
most temperate, by reason of a cold blast which comes from the snowy
mountains of Sierra de Cadarama 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, Lanos, as
Herrera, Laet, and [3066]Acosta contend, there is tam mirabilis et
inopinata varietas, such variety of weather, ut merito exerceat ingenia,
that no philosophy can yet find out the true cause of it. When I consider
how temperate it is in one place, saith [3067]Acosta, within the tropic of
Capricorn, as about Laplata, and yet hard by at Potosi, in that same
altitude, mountainous alike, extreme cold; extreme hot in Brazil, &c. Hic
ego, saith Acosta, philosophiam Aristotelis meteorologicam vehementer
irrisi, cum, &c., 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 poetices l. 3. c. 16. discourseth thus
of this subject. How comes, or wherefore is this temeraria siderum
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
justae dimensiones, et prudens partium dispositio, as in the fabric of
man, his eyes, ears, nose, face, members are correspondent, cur non idem
coelo opere omnium pulcherrimo? Why are the heavens so irregular, neque
paribus molibus, neque paribus intervallis, whence is this difference?
Diversos (he concludes) efficere locorum Genios, to make diversity of
countries, soils, manners, customs, characters, and constitutions among us,
ut quantum vicinia ad charitatem addat, sidera distrahant ad perniciem,
and so by this means fluvio vel monte distincti sunt 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.
gr. from the first of Aries, and if the earth be immovable, as their site
varies, so should countries vary, and diverse alterations would follow. But
this we perceive not; as in Tully's time with us in Britain, coelum visu
foedum, et in quo facile generantur nubes, &c., 'tis so still. Wherefore
Bodine Theat. nat. lib. 2. 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, &c.,
the philosophers of Conimbra, will refer this diversity to the influence of
that empyrean 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 the
vegetals is decayed, [3068]men grow less, &c. There are that observe new
motions of the heavens, new stars, palantia sidera, comets, clouds, call
them what you will, like those Medicean, Burbonian, 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 sackbut by pulling it up
and down alters his tones and tunes, do they their stations and places,
though to us undiscerned; and from those motions proceed (as they conceive)
diverse alterations. Clavius conjectures otherwise, but they be but
conjectures. About Damascus in Coeli-Syria is a [3069]Paradise, by reason
of the plenty of waters, in promptu causa est, and the deserts of Arabia
barren, because of rocks, rolling seas of sands, and dry mountains quod
inaquosa (saith Adricomius) montes habens asperos, saxosos, praecipites,
horroris et mortis speciem prae se ferentes, 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, 'tis 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 [3070]etesian
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 [3071]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
[3072]Peru) on the one side of the mountains 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 Perioeci or very near site, how can that position
hold?
Who can give a reason of this diversity of meteors, that it should rain
[3073]stones, frogs, mice, &c. Rats, which they call lemmer in Norway,
and are manifestly observed (as [3074]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 Aries
in France, 1553, the like happened by the same mischief, all their grass
and fruits were devoured, magna incolarum admiratione et consternatione
(as Valleriola obser. med. lib. 1. obser. 1. relates) coelum subito
obumbrabant, &c. he concludes, [3075]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, &c. lifted up into the
middle region by the sunbeams, as [3076]Baracellus the physician disputes,
and thence let fall with showers, or there engendered? [3077]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 princes of the air; to whom Bodin.
lib. 2. Theat. Nat. subscribes. In fine, of meteors in general,
Aristotle's reasons are exploded by Bernardinus Telesius, by Paracelsus his
principles confuted, and other causes assigned, sal, sulphur, mercury, in
which his disciples are so expert, that they can alter elements, and
separate at their pleasure, make perpetual motions, not as Cardan, Tasneir,
Peregrinus, by some magnetical virtue, but by mixture of elements; imitate
thunder, like Salmoneus, snow, hail, the sea's ebbing and flowing, give
life to creatures (as they say) without generation, and what not? P. Nonius
Saluciensis and Kepler take upon them to demonstrate that no meteors,
clouds, fogs, [3078]vapours, arise higher than fifty or eighty miles, and
all the rest to be purer air or element of fire: which [3079]Cardan,
[3080]Tycho, and [3081]John Pena 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 sixty semi-diameters of the
earth: and as Peter Nonius will have it, the air be so angust, what
proportion is there betwixt the other three elements and it? To what use
serves it? Is it full of spirits which inhabit it, as the Paracelsians and
Platonists hold, the higher the more noble, [3082]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
Pena, Jordanus Brunus, with 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 [3083]America; if a man ascend, he faints instantly for want of
thicker air to refrigerate the heart. Acosta, l. 3. c. 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 qualification, 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 essentia,
[3084]but that it is penetrable and soft as the air itself is, 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 Claremontius in his
Antitycho stiffly opposes), which are not generated, as Aristotle teacheth,
in the aerial region, of a hot and dry exhalation, and so consumed: but as
Anaxagoras and Democritus held of old, of a celestial matter: and as [3085]
Tycho, [3086]Eliseus, Roeslin, Thaddeus, Haggesius, Pena, Rotman,
Fracastorius, demonstrate by their progress, parallaxes, refractions,
motions of the planets, which interfere and cut one another's orbs, now
higher, and then lower, as amongst the rest, which sometimes, as
[3087]Kepler confirms by his own, and Tycho's accurate observations, comes
nearer the earth than the and is again eftsoons aloft in Jupiter's
orb; and [3088]other sufficient reasons, far above the moon: exploding in
the meantime that element of fire, those fictitious first watery movers,
those heavens I mean above the firmament, which Delrio, Lodovicus Imola,
Patricius, and many of the fathers affirm; those monstrous orbs of
eccentrics, and Eccentre Epicycles deserentes. Which howsoever Ptolemy,
Alhasen, Vitellio, Purbachius, Maginus, Clavius, and many of their
associates, stiffly maintain to be real orbs, eccentric, concentric,
circles aequant, &c. 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 feign, add and subtract at their
pleasure. [3089]Maginus makes eleven heavens, subdivided into their orbs
and circles, and all too little to serve those particular appearances:
Fracastorius, seventy-two homocentrics; Tycho Brahe, Nicholas Ramerus,
Heliseus Roeslin, have peculiar hypotheses of their own inventions; and
they be but inventions, as most of them acknowledge, as we admit of
equators, tropics, colures, circles arctic and antarctic, for doctrine's
sake (though Ramus 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, &c., 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, &c., or making
music, as Pythagoras maintained of old, and Robert Constantine of late, but
still, quiet, liquid, open, &c.
If the heavens then be penetrable, as these men deliver, and no lets, it
were not amiss in this aerial progress, to make wings and fly up, which
that Turk in Busbequius made his fellow-citizens in Constantinople believe
he would perform: and some new-fangled wits, methinks, should some time or
other find out: or if that may not be, yet with a Galileo's glass, or
Icaromenippus' 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 ethereal comets, that in Cassiopea, 1572, that in
Cygno, 1600, that in Sagittarius, 1604, and many like, which by no means
Jul. Caesar la Galla, that Italian philosopher, in his physical disputation
with Galileis de phenomenis in orbe lunae, cap. 9. will admit: or that
they were created ab initio, and show themselves at set times. and as
[3090]Helisaeus Roeslin contends, have poles, axle-trees, circles of their
own, and regular motions. For, non pereunt, sed minuuntur et disparent,
[3091]Blancanus 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 [3092]Helisaeus Roeslin of some others,
from the moon, with little stars about them ad stuporem astronomorum; cum
multis aliis in coelo miraculis, all which argue with those Medicean,
Austrian, and Burbonian stars, that the heaven of the planets is
indistinct, pure, and open, in which the planets move certis legibus ac
metis. Examine likewise, An coelum sit coloratum? Whether the stars be
of that bigness, distance, as astronomers relate, so many in [3093]number,
1026, or 1725, as J. 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 isles of the Maldives in the Indian ocean? Whether
the least visible star in the eighth sphere be eighteen 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 Democritus? Whether they have light of their own,
or from the sun, or give light round, as Patritius discourseth? An aeque
distent a centra mundi? 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 precession of the equinoxes as
Copernicus holds, or that the eighth sphere move? An bene philosophentur,
R. Bacon and J. Dee, Aphorism. de multiplicatione specierum? Whether
there be any such images ascending with each degree of the zodiac in the
east, as Aliacensis feigns? An aqua super coelum? as Patritius and the
schoolmen will, a crystalline [3094]watery heaven, which is [3095]
certainly to be understood of that in the middle region? for otherwise, if
at Noah's flood the water came from thence, it must be above a hundred
years falling down to us, as [3096]some calculate. Besides, An terra sit
animata? which some so confidently believe, with Orpheus, Hermes,
Averroes, from which all other souls of men, beasts, devils, plants,
fishes, &c. are derived, and into which again, after some revolutions, as
Plato in his Timaeus, Plotinus in his Enneades more largely discuss, they
return (see Chalcidius and Bennius, Plato's commentators), as all
philosophical matter, in materiam primam. Keplerus, Patritius, 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, &c. 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
Samius, Pythagoras maintained it of old, Democritus and many of their
scholars, Didacus Astunica, Anthony Fascarinus, a Carmelite, and some other
commentators, will have Job to insinuate as much, cap. 9. ver. 4. Qui
commovet terram de loco suo, &c., and that this one place of scripture
makes more for the earth's motion than all the other prove against it; whom
Pineda 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 [3097]
Calcagninus, Telesius, Kepler, Rotman, Gilbert, Digges, Galileo,
Campanella, and especially by [3098]Lansbergius, naturae, rationi, et
veritati consentaneum, by Origanus, and some [3099]others of his
followers. For if the earth be the centre of the world, stand still, and
the heavens move, as the most received [3100]opinion is, which they call
inordinatam coeli dispositionem, though stiffly maintained by Tycho,
Ptolemeus, and their adherents, quis ille furor? &c. what fury is that,
saith [3101]Dr. Gilbert, satis animose, as Cabeus notes, that shall
drive the heavens about with such incomprehensible celerity in twenty-four
hours, when as every point of the firmament, and in the equator, must needs
move (so [3102]Clavius 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 1884
times in an hour, which is supra humanam cogitationem, beyond human
conceit: ocyor et jaculo, et ventos, aequante sagitta. A man could not
ride so much ground, going 40 miles a day, in 2904 years, as the firmament
goes in 23 hours: or so much in 203 years, as the firmament in one minute:
quod incredibile videtur: and the [3103]pole-star, which to our thinking
scarce moveth 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 ♂ and ☿,
beneath ♄, ♃, ♂(or as [3104]Origanus 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
thousand years; and so the planets, Saturn in 30 years absolves his sole
and proper motion, Jupiter in 12, Mars in 3, &c. 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, &c. rectius commodiusque per
unicum motum terrae, saith Lansbergius, much more certain than by those
Alphonsine, or any such tables, which are grounded from those other
suppositions. And 'tis true they say, according to optic principles, the
visible appearances of the planets do so indeed answer to their magnitudes
and orbs, and come nearest to 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
firmament, there is such an incredible and vast [3105]space or distance
(7,000,000 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 alteration 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 punctum
indivisibile 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 hoc 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, [3106]
Kepler, and others prove, and then per consequens, the rest of the
planets are inhabited, as well as the moon, which he grants in his
dissertation with Galileo's Nuncius Sidereus, [3107]that there be
Jovial and Saturn inhabitants, &c., 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
Sitius the Florentine, Fortunius Licetus, and Jul. Caesar le Galla cavil at
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, peradventure 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 centre
of the world alike, and it may be those two green children which [3109]
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, olymp. 84,
anno tertio, ad Capuas Fluenta, recorded by Laertius and others, or
Ancile or buckler in Numa's time, recorded by Festus. We may likewise
insert with Campanella and Brunus, that which Pythagoras, Aristarchus,
Samius, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Melissus, Democritus, Leucippus maintained in
their ages, there be [3110]infinite worlds, and infinite earths or
systems, in infinito aethere, which [3111]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 per ambulationem, &c. (Nic. Hill.
Londinensis philos. Epicur.) For if the firmament be of such an
incomparable bigness, as these Copernical giants will have it, infinitum,
aut infinito proximum, 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,
insomuch that if the whole sphere of Saturn, and all that is included in
it, totum aggregatum (as Fromundus of Louvain in his tract, de
immobilitate terrae argues) evehatur inter stellas, videri a nobis non
poterat, tam immanis est distantia inter tellurem et fixas, sed instar
puncti, &c. 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 round him? which
Cardinal Cusanus, Walkarinus, Brunus, and some others have held, and some
still maintain, Animae, Aristotelismo innutritae, et minutis speculationibus
assuetae, secus forsan, &c. Though they seem close to us, they are
infinitely distant, and so per consequens, there are infinite habitable
worlds: what hinders? Why should not an infinite cause (as God is) produce
infinite effects? as Nic. Hill. Democrit. philos. disputes: Kepler (I
confess) will by no means admit of Brunus's infinite worlds, or that the
fixed stars should be so many suns, with their compassing planets, yet the
said [3112]Kepler between jest and earnest in his perspectives, lunar
geography, [3113] & somnio suo, dissertat. cum nunc. sider. 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, [3114]
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? Difficile est nodum hunc expedire, eo quod nondum omnia quae huc
pertinent explorata habemus: 'tis hard to determine: this only he proves,
that we are in praecipuo mundi sinu, in the best place, best world,
nearest the heart of the sun. [3115]Thomas Campanella, a Calabrian monk,
in his second book de sensu rerum, cap. 4, subscribes to this of Kepler;
that they are inhabited he certainly supposeth, but with what kind of
creatures he cannot say, he labours to prove it by all means: and that
there are infinite worlds, having made an apology for Galileo, and
dedicates this tenet of his to Cardinal Cajetanus. Others freely speak,
mutter, and would persuade the world (as [3116]Marinus Marcenus 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 profit's sake. As for those places of Scripture which oppugn it,
they will have spoken ad captum vulgi, and if rightly understood, and
favourably interpreted, not at all against it; and as Otho Gasman, Astrol.
cap. 1. part. 1. notes, many great divines, besides Porphyrius, Proclus,
Simplicius, and those heathen philosophers, doctrina et aetate venerandi,
Mosis Genesin mundanam popularis nescio cujus ruditatis, quae longa absit a
vera Philosophorum eruditione, insimulant: for Moses makes mention but of
two planets, ☉ and ☾,, no four elements, &c. Read more on him, in
[3117]Grossius 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, Diggeus, Origanus,
Galileo, and others, maintain of the earth's motion, that 'tis a planet,
and shines as the moon doth, which contains in it [3118]both land and sea
as the moon doth: for so they find by their glasses that Maculae in facie
Lunae, 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 [3119]condemned as heretical, as
appears by Blancanus and Fromundus's 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 Dedalaean heads. Fracastorius
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 Ramerus 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 Ramerus, the planets without orbs to wander in the air, keep
time and distance, true motion, according to that virtue which God hath
given them. [3120]Helisaeus Roeslin censureth both, with Copernicus (whose
hypothesis de terrae motu, Philippus Lansbergius hath lately vindicated,
and demonstrated with solid arguments in a just volume, Jansonius Caesins
[3121]hath illustrated in a sphere.) The said Johannes Lansbergius, 1633,
hath since defended his assertion against all the cavils and calumnies of
Fromundus his Anti-Aristarchus, Baptista Morinus, and Petrus Bartholinus:
Fromundus, 1634, hath written against him again, J. Rosseus of Aberdeen,
&c. (sound drums and trumpets) whilst Roeslin (I say) censures all, and
Ptolemeus himself as insufficient: one offends against natural philosophy,
another against optic principles, a third against mathematical, as 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 formerly
exploded; and so, Dum vitant stulti vitia in contraria currunt, [3122]as
a tinker stops one hole and makes two, he corrects them, and doth worse
himself: reforms some, and mars all. In the mean time, 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 [3123]finds certain spots and clouds in
the sun, by the help of glasses, which multiply (saith Keplerus) 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 [3124]Tarde, 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: Apelles 15, and those without the sun, floating like the Cyanean Isles
in the Euxine sea. [3125]Tarde, the Frenchman, hath observed thirty-three,
and those neither spots nor clouds, as Galileo, Epist. ad Valserum,
supposeth, but planets concentric with the sun, and not far from him with
regular motions. [3126]Christopher Shemer, a German Suisser Jesuit,
Ursica Rosa, 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 withal the rotation of
the sun upon his centre; and all are so confident, that they have made
schemes and tables of their motions. The [3127]Hollander, in his
dissertatiuncula cum Apelle, censures all; and thus they disagree amongst
themselves, old and new, irreconcilable in their opinions; thus
Aristarchus, thus Hipparchus, thus Ptolemeus, thus Albateginus, thus
Alfraganus, thus Tycho, thus Ramerus, thus Roeslinus, thus Fracastorius,
thus Copernicus and his adherents, thus Clavius and Maginus, &c., 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 [3128]she was with those, and send another
messenger to Jupiter, by some new-fangled Icaromenippus, to make an end of
all those curious controversies, and scatter them abroad.
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 site and biggest distance in a glass,
calculate their motions, or visit the moon in a poetical fiction, or a
dream, as he saith, [3129]Audax facinus et memorabile nunc incipiam,
neque hoc saeculo usurpatum prius, quid in Lunae regno hac nocte gestum sit
exponam, et quo nemo unquam nisi somniando pervenit, [3130]but he and
Menippus: or as [3131]Peter Cuneus, Bona fide agam, nihil eorum quae
scripturus sum, verum esse scitote, &c. quae nec facta, nec futura sunt,
dicam, [3132]stili tantum et ingenii causa, not in jest, 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,
&c., 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'
Alcoran, Mahomet 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 [3133]names, offices: some deny God
and his providence, some take his office out of his hands, will [3134]bind
and loose in heaven, release, pardon, forgive, and be quarter-master with
him: some call his Godhead in question, his power, and attributes, his
mercy, justice, providence: they will know with [3135]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 [3136]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 lets he
all things be done by fortune and chance? Others as prodigiously inquire
after his omnipotency, an possit plures similes creare deos? an ex
scarcibaeo deum? &c., et quo demum ruetis sacrificuli? Some, by visions
and revelations, take upon them to be familiar with God, and to be of privy
council 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 [3137]Epicurus,
what God did before the world was made? was he idle? Where did he bide?
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, &c.
Some will dispute, cavil, and object, as Julian did of old, whom Cyril
confutes, as Simon Magus is feigned to do, in that [3138]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? &c., with many such absurd and
brain-sick questions, intricacies, froth of human wit, and excrements of
curiosity, &c., which, as our Saviour told his inquisitive disciples, are
not fit for them to know. But hoo! 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 [3139]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 were as able as willing, yet what can one man do? I will conclude with
[3140]Scaliger, Nequaquam nos homines sumus, sed partes hominis, ex
omnibus aliquid fieri potest, idque non magnum; ex singulis fere nihil.
Besides (as Nazianzen hath it) Deus latere nos multa voluit; and with
Seneca, cap. 35. de Cometis, Quid miramur tam rara mundi spectacula non
teneri certis legibus, nondum intelligi? multae sunt gentes quae tantum de
facie sciunt coelum, veniet, tempus fortasse, quo ista quae, nunc latent in
lucem dies extrahat longioris aevi diligentia, una aetas non sufficit,
posteri, &c., 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 [3141]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 [3142]one said 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 Pancirola 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 sub sole
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 Pratensis, in his book de morbis capitis, and chapter of
Melancholy, hath these words out of Galen, [3143]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 avoid. 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 avoid: and 'tis 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 formerly shown: the medium must needs be good, where the air is
temperate, serene, quiet, free from bogs, fens, mists, all manner of
putrefaction, contagious and filthy noisome smells. The [3144]Egyptians by
all geographers are commended to be hilares, 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 [3145]Hector Boethius
and [3146]Cardan, 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 Boeoti, by reason of a foggy air in which they lived,
[3147]Boeotum in crasso jurares aere natum, Attica most acute, pleasant,
and refined. The clime changes not so much customs, manners, wits (as
Aristotle Polit. lib. 6. cap. 4. Vegetius, Plato, Bodine, method.
hist. cap. 5. 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 [3148]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 Guienne, 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 wolds 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
[3149]Tartari Zamolhenses, 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 Susa; now at Persepolis, then at
Pasargada. Cyrus lived seven cold months at Babylon, three at Susa, two at
Ecbatana, saith [3150]Xenophon, and had by that means a perpetual spring.
The great Turk sojourns sometimes at Constantinople, sometimes at
Adrianople, &c. The kings of Spain have their Escurial in heat of summer,
[3151]Madrid for a wholesome seat, Valladolid a pleasant site, &c.,
variety of secessus as all princes and great men have, and their several
progresses to this purpose. Lucullus the Roman had his house at Rome, at
Baiae, &c. [3152]When Cn. Pompeius, Marcus Cicero (saith Plutarch) and
many noble men in the summer came to see him, at supper Pompeius jested
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: Lucullus made answer that the lord of the house had wit
like a crane, that changeth 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 Tusculan, Plinius his Lauretan village, and every
gentleman of any fashion in our times hath the like. The [3153]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 it be some few
castles) building still in bottoms (saith [3154]Jovius) or near woods,
corona arborum 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 [3155]Ew-elme, that it was therefore unfrequented, ob
stagni vicini halitus, 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 [3156]one reports of Venice, that
graveolentia and fog of the moors is sufficiently qualified by those
innumerable smokes. Nay more, [3157]Thomas Philol. Ravennas, 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, Ver
pinget vario gemmantia 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, [3158]Orton super montem,
[3159]Drayton, or a little more elevated, though nearer, as [3160]Caucut,
[3161]Amington, [3162]Polesworth, [3163]Weddington (to insist in such
places best to me known, upon the river of Anker, in Warwickshire, [3164]
Swarston, and [3165]Drakesly 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, I know no men that have given better rules in this behalf than
our husbandry writers. [3166]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 Tusser will tell us so much, that the fieldone 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 fieldone, 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 sterili, but in an excellent
air, and full of all manner of pleasures. [3167]Wadley in Berkshire is
situate in a vale, though not so fertile a soil as some vales afford, yet a
most commodious site, wholesome, in a delicious air, a rich and pleasant
seat. So Segrave in Leicestershire (which town [3168]I am now bound to
remember) is situated in a champaign, 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, [3169]Wollerton in Nottinghamshire, is
much to be commended (though the tract be sandy and barren about it) for
making choice of such a place. Constantine, lib. 2. cap. de Agricult.
praiseth mountains, hilly, steep places, above the rest by the seaside, and
such as look toward the [3170]north upon some great river, as [3171]
Farmack in Derbyshire, on the Trent, environed with hills, open only to the
north, like Mount Edgecombe in Cornwall, which Mr. [3172]Carew so much
admires for an excellent seat: such is the general site of Bohemia:
serenat Boreas, the north wind clarifies, [3173]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 [3174]
high places, and in an excellent prospect, like that of Cuddeston in
Oxfordshire (which place I must honoris ergo mention) is lately and
fairly [3175]built in a good air, good prospect, good soil, both for
profit and pleasure, not so easily to be matched. P. Crescentius, in his
lib. 1. de Agric. cap. 5. is very copious in this subject, how a house
should be wholesomely sited, in a good coast, good air, wind, &c., Varro
de re rust. lib. 1. cap. 12. [3176]forbids lakes and rivers, marshy
and manured grounds, they cause a bad air, gross diseases, hard to be
cured: [3177]if it be so that he cannot help it, better (as he adviseth)
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,
[3178]Cato saith, and his dwelling next to hell itself, according to
Columella: he commends, in conclusion, the middle of a hill, upon a
descent. Baptista, Porta Villae, lib. 1. cap. 22. 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 climes, I know not, in our
northern countries I am sure it is best: Stephanus, a Frenchman, praedio
rustic. lib. 1. cap. 4. subscribes to this, approving especially the
descent of a hill south or south-east, with trees to the north, so that it
be well watered; a condition in all sites which must not be omitted, as
Herbastein inculcates, lib. 1. Julius Caesar Claudinus, a physician,
consult. 24, for a nobleman in Poland, melancholy given, adviseth him to
dwell in a house inclining to the [3179]east, and [3180]by all means to
provide the air be clear and sweet; which Montanus, consil. 229,
counselleth the earl of Monfort, 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: Montpelier, the
habitation and university of physicians, is so built, with high houses,
narrow streets, to divert the sun's scalding rays, which Tacitus commends,
lib. 15. Annat., as most agreeing to their health, [3181]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, Berne 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 Baiae, Naples,
&c. In our northern countries we are opposite, we commend straight, broad,
open, fair streets, as most befitting and agreeing to our clime. We build
in bottoms for warmth: and that site of Mitylene in the island of Lesbos,
in the Aegean sea, which Vitruvius so much discommends, magnificently built
with fair houses, sed imprudenter positam unadvisedly sited, because it
lay along to the south, and when the south wind blew, the people were all
sick, would make an excellent site in our northern climes.
Of that artificial site of houses I have sufficiently discoursed: if the
plan of the dwelling may not be altered, yet there is much in choice of
such a chamber or room, in opportune opening and shutting of windows,
excluding foreign air and winds, and walking abroad at convenient times.
[3182]Crato, a German, commends east and south site (disallowing cold air
and northern winds in this case, rainy weather and misty days), free from
putrefaction, fens, bogs, and muck—hills. If the air be such, open no
windows, come not abroad. Montanus will have his patient not to [3183]stir
at all, if the wind be big or tempestuous, as most part in March it is with
us; or in cloudy, lowering, dark days, as in November, which we commonly
call the black month; or stormy, let the wind stand how it will, consil.
27. and 30. he must not [3184]open a casement in bad weather, or in a
boisterous season, consil. 299, he especially forbids us to open windows
to a south wind. The best sites for chamber windows, in my judgment, are
north, east, south, and which is the worst, west. Levinus Lemnius, lib.
3. cap. 3. de occult. nat. mir. attributes so much to air, and
rectifying of wind and windows, that he holds it alone sufficient to make a
man sick or well; to alter body and mind. [3185]A clear air cheers up the
spirits, exhilarates the mind; a thick, black, misty, tempestuous,
contracts, overthrows. Great heed is therefore to be taken at what times
we walk, how we place our windows, lights, and houses, how we let in or
exclude this ambient air. The Egyptians, to avoid immoderate heat, make
their windows on the top of the house like chimneys, with two tunnels to
draw a thorough air. In Spain they commonly make great opposite windows
without glass, still shutting those which are next to the sun: so likewise
in Turkey and Italy (Venice excepted, which brags of her stately glazed
palaces) they use paper windows to like purpose; and lie, sub dio, in the
top of their flat-roofed houses, so sleeping under the canopy of heaven. In
some parts of [3186]Italy they have windmills, to draw a cooling air out
of hollow caves, and disperse the same through all the chambers of their
palaces, to refresh them; as at Costoza, the house of Caesareo Trento, a
gentleman of Vicenza, and elsewhere. Many excellent means are invented to
correct nature by art. If none of these courses help, the best way is to
make artificial air, which howsoever is profitable and good, still to be
made hot and moist, and to be seasoned with sweet perfumes, [3187]pleasant
and lightsome as it may be; to have roses, violets, and sweet-smelling
flowers ever in their windows, posies in their hand. Laurentius commends
water-lilies, a vessel of warm water to evaporate in the room, which will
make a more delightful perfume, if there be added orange-flowers, pills of
citrons, rosemary, cloves, bays, rosewater, rose-vinegar, benzoin,
laudanum, styrax, and such like gums, which make a pleasant and acceptable
perfume. [3188]Bessardus Bisantinus prefers the smoke of juniper to
melancholy persons, which is in great request with us at Oxford, to sweeten
our chambers. [3189]Guianerius prescribes the air to be moistened with
water, and sweet herbs boiled in it, vine, and sallow leaves, &c., [3190]
to besprinkle the ground and posts with rosewater, rose-vinegar, which
Avicenna much approves. Of colours it is good to behold green, red, yellow,
and white, and by all means to have light enough, with windows in the day,
wax candles in the night, neat chambers, good fires in winter, merry
companions; for though melancholy persons love to be dark and alone, yet
darkness is a great increaser of the humour.
Although our ordinary air be good by nature or art, yet it is not amiss, as
I have said, still to alter it; no better physic for a melancholy man than
change of air, and variety of places, to travel abroad and see fashions.
[3191]Leo Afer speaks of many of his countrymen so cured, without all
other physic: amongst the Negroes, there is such an excellent air, that if
any of them be sick elsewhere, and brought thither, he is instantly
recovered, of which he was often an eyewitness. [3192]Lipsius, Zuinger,
and some others, add as much of ordinary travel. No man, saith Lipsius, in
an epistle to Phil. Lanoius, a noble friend of his, now ready to make a
voyage, [3193]can be such a stock or stone, whom that pleasant
speculation of countries, cities, towns, rivers, will not affect. [3194]
Seneca the philosopher was infinitely taken with the sight of Scipio
Africanus' house, near Linternum, to view those old buildings, cisterns,
baths, tombs, &c. And how was [3195]Tully pleased with the sight of
Athens, to behold those ancient and fair buildings, with a remembrance of
their worthy inhabitants. Paulus Aemilius, that renowned Roman captain,
after he had conquered Perseus, the last king of Macedonia, and now made an
end of his tedious wars, though he had been long absent from Rome, and much
there desired, about the beginning of autumn (as [3196]Livy describes it)
made a pleasant peregrination all over Greece, accompanied with his son
Scipio, and Atheneus the brother of king Eumenes, leaving the charge of his
army with Sulpicius Gallus. By Thessaly he went to Delphos, thence to
Megaris, Aulis, Athens, Argos, Lacedaemon, Megalopolis, &c. He took great
content, exceeding delight in that his voyage, as who doth not that shall
attempt the like, though his travel be ad jactationem magis quam ad usum
reipub. (as [3197]one well observes) to crack, gaze, see fine sights and
fashions, spend time, rather than for his own or public good? (as it is to
many gallants that travel out their best days, together with their means,
manners, honesty, religion) yet it availeth howsoever. For peregrination
charms our senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety, [3198]that some
count him unhappy that never travelled, and pity his case, that from his
cradle to his old age beholds the same still; still, still the same, the
same. Insomuch that [3199]Rhasis, cont. lib. 1. Tract. 2. doth not only
commend, but enjoin travel, and such variety of objects to a melancholy
man, and to lie in diverse inns, to be drawn into several companies:
Montaltus, cap. 36. and many neoterics are of the same mind: Celsus
adviseth him therefore that will continue his health, to have varium vitae
genus, diversity of callings, occupations, to be busied about, [3200]
sometimes to live in the city, sometimes in the country; now to study or
work, to be intent, then again to hawk or hunt, swim, run, ride, or
exercise himself. A good prospect alone will ease melancholy, as Comesius
contends, lib. 2. c. 7. de Sale. The citizens of [3201]Barcino,
saith he, otherwise penned in, melancholy, and stirring little abroad, are
much delighted with that pleasant prospect their city hath into the sea,
which like that of old Athens besides Aegina Salamina, and many pleasant
islands, had all the variety of delicious objects: so are those Neapolitans
and inhabitants of Genoa, to see the ships, boats, and passengers go by,
out of their windows, their whole cities being situated on the side of a
hill, like Pera by Constantinople, so that each house almost hath a free
prospect to the sea, as some part of London to the Thames: or to have a
free prospect all over the city at once, as at Granada in Spain, and Fez in
Africa, the river running betwixt two declining hills, the steepness
causeth each house almost, as well to oversee, as to be overseen of the
rest. Every country is full of such [3202]delightsome prospects, as well
within land, as by sea, as Hermon and [3203]Rama in Palestina, Colalto in
Italy, the top of Magetus, or Acrocorinthus, that old decayed castle in
Corinth, from which Peloponessus, Greece, the Ionian and Aegean seas were
semel et simul at one view to be taken. In Egypt the square top of the
great pyramid, three hundred yards in height, and so the Sultan's palace in
Grand Cairo, the country being plain, hath a marvellous fair prospect as
well over Nilus, as that great city, five Italian miles long, and two
broad, by the river side: from mount Sion in Jerusalem, the Holy Land is of
all sides to be seen: such high places are infinite: with us those of the
best note are Glastonbury tower, Box Hill in Surrey, Bever castle, Rodway
Grange, [3204]Walsby in Lincolnshire, where I lately received a real
kindness, by the munificence of the right honourable my noble lady and
patroness, the Lady Frances, countess dowager of Exeter: and two amongst
the rest, which I may not omit for vicinity's sake, Oldbury in the confines
of Warwickshire, where I have often looked about me with great delight, at
the foot of which hill [3205]I was born: and Hanbury in Staffordshire,
contiguous to which is Falde, a pleasant village, and an ancient patrimony
belonging to our family, now in the possession of mine elder brother,
William Burton, Esquire. [3206]Barclay the Scot commends that of Greenwich
tower for one of the best prospects in Europe, to see London on the one
side, the Thames, ships, and pleasant meadows on the other. There be those
that say as much and more of St. Mark's steeple in Venice. Yet these are at
too great a distance: some are especially affected with such objects as be
near, to see passengers go by in some great roadway, or boats in a river,
in subjectum forum despicere, to oversee a fair, a marketplace, or out
of a pleasant window into some thoroughfare street, to behold a continual
concourse, a promiscuous rout, coming and going, or a multitude of
spectators at a theatre, a mask, or some such like show. But I rove: the
sum is this, that variety of actions, objects, air, places, are excellent
good in this infirmity, and all others, good for man, good for beast.
[3207]Constantine the emperor, lib. 18. cap. 13. ex Leontio, holds
it an only cure for rotten sheep, and any manner of sick cattle. Laelius a
Fonte Aegubinus, that great doctor, at the latter end of many of his
consultations (as commonly he doth set down what success his physic had,)
in melancholy most especially approves of this above all other remedies
whatsoever, as appears consult. 69. consult. 229. &c. [3208]Many
other things helped, but change of air was that which wrought the cure, and
did most good. |
