The Anatomy of Melancholy: Philosophy Classic. Robert Burton

Anglia (saith he) quae, tot denariis sponte est privata, stulti principes Alemaniae, qui nobile jus suum pro pecunia vendiderunt; spendthrifts, bribers, and bribe-takers are fools, and so are [758]all they that cannot keep, disburse, or spend their moneys well.

      I might say the like of angry, peevish, envious, ambitious; [759] Anticyras melior sorbere meracas; Epicures, Atheists, Schismatics, Heretics; hi omnes habent imaginationem laesam (saith Nymannus) "and their madness shall be evident," 2 Tim. iii. 9. [760]Fabatus, an Italian, holds seafaring men all mad; "the ship is mad, for it never stands still; the mariners are mad, to expose themselves to such imminent dangers: the waters are raging mad, in perpetual motion: the winds are as mad as the rest, they know not whence they come, whither they would go: and those men are maddest of all that go to sea; for one fool at home, they find forty abroad." He was a madman that said it, and thou peradventure as mad to read it. [761] Felix Platerus is of opinion all alchemists are mad, out of their wits; [762]Atheneus saith as much of fiddlers, et musarum luscinias, [763] Musicians, omnes tibicines insaniunt, ubi semel efflant, avolat illico mens, in comes music at one ear, out goes wit at another. Proud and vainglorious persons are certainly mad; and so are [764]lascivious; I can feel their pulses beat hither; horn-mad some of them, to let others lie with their wives, and wink at it.

      To insist [765]in all particulars, were an Herculean task, to [766]reckon up [767]insanas substructiones, insanos labores, insanum luxum, mad labours, mad books, endeavours, carriages, gross ignorance, ridiculous actions, absurd gestures; insanam gulam, insaniam villarum, insana jurgia, as Tully terms them, madness of villages, stupend structures; as those Egyptian Pyramids, Labyrinths and Sphinxes, which a company of crowned asses, ad ostentationem opum, vainly built, when neither the architect nor king that made them, or to what use and purpose, are yet known: to insist in their hypocrisy, inconstancy, blindness, rashness, dementem temeritatem, fraud, cozenage, malice, anger, impudence, ingratitude, ambition, gross superstition, [768]tempora infecta et adulatione sordida, as in Tiberius' times, such base flattery, stupend, parasitical fawning and colloguing, &c. brawls, conflicts, desires, contentions, it would ask an expert Vesalius to anatomise every member. Shall I say? Jupiter himself, Apollo, Mars, &c. doted; and monster-conquering Hercules that subdued the world, and helped others, could not relieve himself in this, but mad he was at last. And where shall a man walk, converse with whom, in what province, city, and not meet with Signior Deliro, or Hercules Furens, Maenads, and Corybantes? Their speeches say no less. [769]E fungis nati homines, or else they fetched their pedigree from those that were struck by Samson with the jaw-bone of an ass. Or from Deucalion and Pyrrha's stones, for durum genus sumus, [770] marmorei sumus, we are stony-hearted, and savour too much of the stock, as if they had all heard that enchanted horn of Astolpho, that English duke in Ariosto, which never sounded but all his auditors were mad, and for fear ready to make away with themselves; [771]or landed in the mad haven in the Euxine sea of Daphnis insana, which had a secret quality to dementate; they are a company of giddy-heads, afternoon men, it is Midsummer moon still, and the dog-days last all the year long, they are all mad. Whom shall I then except? Ulricus Huttenus [772]nemo, nam, nemo omnibus horis sapit, Nemo nascitur sine vitiis, Crimine Nemo caret, Nemo sorte sua vivit contentus, Nemo in amore sapit, Nemo bonus, Nemo sapiens, Nemo, est ex omni parti beatus, &c. [773]and therefore Nicholas Nemo, or Monsieur Nobody shall go free, Quid valeat nemo, Nemo referre potest? But whom shall I except in the second place? such as are silent, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur; [774]no better way to avoid folly and madness, than by taciturnity. Whom in a third? all senators, magistrates; for all fortunate men are wise, and conquerors valiant, and so are all great men, non est bonum ludere cum diis, they are wise by authority, good by their office and place, his licet impune pessimos esse, (some say) we must not speak of them, neither is it fit; per me sint omnia protinus alba, I will not think amiss of them. Whom next? Stoics? Sapiens Stoicus, and he alone is subject to no perturbations, as [775]Plutarch scoffs at him, "he is not vexed with torments, or burnt with fire, foiled by his adversary, sold of his enemy: though he be wrinkled, sand-blind, toothless, and deformed; yet he is most beautiful, and like a god, a king in conceit, though not worth a groat. He never dotes, never mad, never sad, drunk, because virtue cannot be taken away," as [776]Zeno holds, "by reason of strong apprehension," but he was mad to say so. [777]Anticyrae caelo huic est opus aut dolabra, he had need to be bored, and so had all his fellows, as wise as they would seem to be. Chrysippus himself liberally grants them to be fools as well as others, at certain times, upon some occasions, amitti virtutem ait per ebrietatem, aut atribilarium morbum, it may be lost by drunkenness or melancholy, he may be sometimes crazed as well as the rest: [778]ad summum sapiens nisi quum pituita molesta. I should here except some Cynics, Menippus, Diogenes, that Theban Crates; or to descend to these times, that omniscious, only wise fraternity [779]of the Rosicrucians, those great theologues, politicians, philosophers, physicians, philologers, artists, &c. of whom S. Bridget, Albas Joacchimus, Leicenbergius, and such divine spirits have prophesied, and made promise to the world, if at least there be any such (Hen. [780]Neuhusius makes a doubt of it, [781] Valentinus Andreas and others) or an Elias artifex their Theophrastian master; whom though Libavius and many deride and carp at, yet some will have to be "the [782]renewer of all arts and sciences," reformer of the world, and now living, for so Johannes Montanus Strigoniensis, that great patron of Paracelsus, contends, and certainly avers [783]"a most divine man," and the quintessence of wisdom wheresoever he is; for he, his fraternity, friends, &c. are all [784]"betrothed to wisdom," if we may believe their disciples and followers. I must needs except Lipsius and the Pope, and expunge their name out of the catalogue of fools. For besides that parasitical testimony of Dousa,

      "A Sole exoriente Maeotidas usque paludes,

       Nemo est qui justo se aequiparare queat."[785]

      Lipsius saith of himself, that he was [786]humani generis quidem paedagogus voce et stylo, a grand signior, a master, a tutor of us all, and for thirteen years he brags how he sowed wisdom in the Low Countries, as Ammonius the philosopher sometimes did in Alexandria, [787]cum humanitate literas et sapientiam cum prudentia: antistes sapientiae, he shall be Sapientum Octavus. The Pope is more than a man, as [788]his parrots often make him, a demigod, and besides his holiness cannot err, in Cathedra belike: and yet some of them have been magicians, Heretics, Atheists, children, and as Platina saith of John 22, Et si vir literatus, multa stoliditatem et laevitatem prae se ferentia egit, stolidi et socordis vir ingenii, a scholar sufficient, yet many things he did foolishly, lightly. I can say no more than in particular, but in general terms to the rest, they are all mad, their wits are evaporated, and, as Ariosto feigns, l. 34, kept in jars above the moon.

      "Some lose their wits with love, some with ambition,

       Some following [789]Lords and men of high condition.

       Some in fair jewels rich and costly set,

       Others in Poetry their wits forget.

       Another thinks to be an Alchemist,

       Till all be spent, and that his number's mist."

      Convicted fools they are, madmen upon record; and I am afraid past cure many of them, [790]crepunt inguina, the symptoms are manifest, they are all of Gotam parish:

      [791] "Quum furor haud dubius, quum sit manifesta phrenesis,"

      "Since madness is indisputable, since frenzy is obvious."

      what remains then [792]but to send for Lorarios, those officers to carry them all together for company to Bedlam, and set Rabelais to be their physician.

      If any man shall ask in the meantime, who I am that so boldly censure others, tu nullane habes vitia? have I no faults? [793]Yes, more than thou hast, whatsoever thou art. Nos numerus sumus, I confess it again, I am as foolish, as mad as any one.

      [794] "Insanus vobis videor, non deprecor ipse, Quo minus insanus,"———

      I do not deny it, demens de populo dematur. My comfort is, I have more fellows, and those of excellent note. And though I be not so right or so discreet as I should be, yet not so mad, so bad neither, as thou perhaps takest me to be.

      To conclude,