Rome the onely constant frend hee had in his vngratefull extrusion amongst the Getes and writ to him thus Qui quod es idverè Care vocaris And in another Elegie O mihi post nullos Care memorande sodales Much more may I acknowledge all redundant prostrate vassailage to the royall descended Familie of the Careys but for whom my spirit long ere this had expyred and my pen seru'd as a puniard to gall my owne hart Why doo I vse so much circumstance and in a streame on which none but gnats and flies doo swimme sound Fames trumpet like Triton to call a number of foolish skiffes and light cock-boates toparley Feare if I be not deceiud was the last pertinent matter I had vnder my displing from which I feare I haue strayed beyond my limits and yet feare hath no limits for to hell and beyond hell it sinkes downe and penetrates But this was my position that the feare of anie expected cuill is worse than the euill it selfe which by dyuers comparisons I confirmed Now to visions and apparitions againe as fast as I can trudge The glasses of our sight in the night are like the prospectiue glasses one Hostius made in Rome which represented the images of things farre greater than they were each moate in the darke they make a monster and euerie sleight glimmering a giant Asolitarie man in his bed is like a poore bed-red lazer lying by the high way side vnto whose displaied wounds and sores a number of stinging flyes doo swarme for pastance and beuerage his naked wounds are his inward hart-griping woes the waspes and flyes his idle wandering thoughts who to that secret smarting paine he hath alreadie do adde a further sting of impatience and new lanch his sleeping griefes and vexations Questionlesse this is an vnrefutable consequence that the man who is mocked of his fortune he that hath consumed his braines to compasse prosperitie and meetes with no counteruaylement in hir likenesse but hedge wine and leane mutton and peraduenture some halfe eid good looks that can hardly be discerned from winking this poore piteous perplexed miscreant either finallie lie despaire or like a lanke frost-bitten plant looseth hys vigor or spirit by little and little anie terror the least illusion in the earth is a Cacodaemon vnto him His soule hath left his bodie for why it is flying after these ayrie incorporeate Courtly promises and glittring painted allurements which when they vanish to nothing it lykewise vanisheth with them Excessiue ioy no lesse hath his desectiue and ioylesse operations the spleene into water it melteth so that except it be some momentarie bubbles of mirth nothing it yeelds but a cloying surfet of repentance Diuers instances haue we of men whom too much sodaine coment and ouer-rauished delight hath brought vntimely to their graues Foure or fiue I haue read of whom the very extremitie of laughter hath bereft of their liues whereby I gather that euen such another pernitious sweete superfluous mirth is to the sence as a surfet of honnie to a mans stomacke than the which there is nothing more dangerous Bee it as dangerous as it will it cannot but be an easie kinde of death It is like one that is stung with an Aspis who in the midst of his paine falls delighted asleepe and in that suauitie of slumber surrenders the ghost whereas hee whom greefe vndertakes to bring to his end hath his hart gnawenin sunder by little little with vultures like Prometheus But this is nothing you will obiect to our iourneys ende of apparitions Yes altogether for of the ouerswelling superabundance of ioy and greefe wee frame to our selues most of our melancholy dreames and visions There is an olde philosophicall common Prouerbe Vnusquisque fingit fortunam sibi Euerie one shapes hys owne fortune as he lists More aptly may it be said Euerie one shapes his owne feares and fancies as he list In all points our brains are like the firmament and exhale in euerie respect the like grose mistempred vapors and meteors of the more foeculent combustible ayrie matter whereof afrighting formes and monstrous images innumerable are created but of the slymie vnweeldier drossie part dull melancholy or drousines And as the firmament is still moouing and working so vncessant is the wheeling and rolling on of our braines which euerie hower are tempring some newe peece of prodigie or other and turmoyling mixing and changing the course of our thoughts I write not this for that I thinke there are no true apparitios or prodigies but to shew how easily we may be flouted if we take not great heed with our own anticke suppositions I will tell you a strange tale tending to this nature whether of true melancholy or true apparition I will not take vpon me to determine It was my chance in Februarie last to be in the Countrey some threescore myle off from London where a Gentleman of good worship and credit falling sicke the verie second day of his lying downe hee pretended to haue miraculous waking visions which before I enter to describe thus much I will informe ye by the way that at the reporting of them he was in perfect memorie nor had sicknes yet so tirannizd ouer him to make his tongue grow idle A wise graue sensible man he was euer reputed and so approou'd himselfe in all his actions in his life time This which I deliuer with manie preparatiue protestations to a great Man of this Land hee confidently avouched beleeue it or condemn it as you shal see cause for I leaue it to be censured in differently The first day of his distemprature he visibly saw as he affirmed al his chamber hung with silken nets and siluer hookes the diuell as it should seeme comming thether a fishing whereupon euery Pater noster while he lookt whether in the nets he should be entangled or with the hookes ensnared with the nets he feard to be strangled or smothred with the hooks to haue his throat scracht out and his flesh rent and mangled at length he knew not how they sodainly vanished and the whole chamber was clered Next a copanie of lusty sailers euerie one a sharker or a swaggerer at the least hauing made a braue voyage came carousing and quaffing in large siluer kans to his helth Fellowes they were that had good big pop mouths to crie Port a helme Saint George and knew as well as the best what belongs to haling of bolings yare and falling on the star-boord buttocke But to the issue of my tale their drunken proffers he vtterly put by and sayd hee highly scorned and detested both them and their hellish disguisings which notwithstanding they tost their cups to the skies and reeled and staggered vp and downe the roome like a ship shaking in the winde After all they danst Lustie gallant a drunken Danish Laualto or two and so departed For the third course rust tin a number of statcly diuels bringing in boystrous chests of massie
THE Terrors of the night Or A Discourse of Apparitions Post Tenebras Dies THO NASHE LONDON Printed by Iohn Danter for William Iones and are to be sold at the signe of the Gunne nere Holburne Conduit 1594. TO THE NEW KINDled cleare Lampe of Virginitie and the excellent adored high Wonder of sharpe Wit and sweete Beautie Mistres ELIZABETH CAREY sole Daughter and Heire to the thrice noble and renowmed Sir GEORGE CAREY Knight Marshall c. RAre adorned Mistris whom al that know admire and not malice it selfe but doth honor True Stemme of Nobilitie out-flourishing your sexe or your age pure saint-like picture of Sobrietie and Modestie sacred and immaculate virgin Starre cleare if anie liuing from the originall sin of thought giue me leaue though contemptible abiect once more to sacrifice my worthles wit to your glorie Manie feruent vowes and protestations of obseruance your bountifull gracious deserts towards mee haue entrancedly extracted which yet remaine in the o're vnwrought and vntride As touching this short glose or annotation on the foolish Terrors of the Night you partly are acquainted from whose motiue imposition it first proceeded as also what strange sodaine cause necessarily produced that motion A long time since hath it line suppressed by mee vntill the vrgent importunitie of a kinde frend of mine to whom I was sundrie waies beholding wrested a Coppie from me That Coppie progressed from one scriueners shop to another at length grew so common that it was readie to bee hung out for one of their signes like a paire of indentures Wherevppon I thought it as good for mee to reape the frute of my owne labours as to let some vnskilfull pen-man or Nouerint-maker startch his ruffe new spade his beard with the benefite he made of them Accept of them exquisite Mistris as the best testimonie I haue yet to expres the dutie that I owe. A little more leasure and prosperitie will beget better labors wherein I will enioyne my spirit to be a peremptorie combattant for your praises against all vulgar deepe flattred mediocritie and pale penurious beautie which giues dull Painters store of gold to solder vp their leane dints of deformity Against your perfections no tung can except Miraculous is your wit and so is a acknowledged by the wittiest Poets of our age who haue vowed to enshrine you as their second DELIA Temperance her selfe hath not temperater behauiour than you religious Pietie hath no humble hand-maide that she more delights in A worthie Daughter are you of so worthie a Mother borrowing as another Phoebe from her bright Sunne-like resplendaunce the orient beames of your radiaunce Into the Muses societie her selfe she hath lately adopted purchast diuine Petrarch another monument in England Euer honored may she be of the royallest breed of wits whose purse is so open to her poore beadsmens distresses Well may I say it because I haue tride it neuer liu'd a more magnificent Ladie of her degree on this earth A number of men there bee who pursuing the high way to the Indies haue perisht in lingring expectation before they could get thether but a neerer Cut haue I found in her extraordinarie liberalitie and bountie and to a companie of my malcontent companions will discouer if it please them how to be gainfull and gain-coping nauigators if they will insist in my directions Now I must tie my selfe to the Printers paper limits and knit vp much thankfulnesse in few words Deare Mistris perswade your selfe that no srowning misfortune or anye accident whatsoeuer shall diuorce me from your reuerence No more I craue in requitall but that you would put me in the checke-roule of your remembrance and not salute me as a stranger Your vertues immoueable Votarie THO NASHE To Master or Goodman Reader generally dispersed East or West GEntlemen according to the laudable custome I am to court you with a few premisses considered but a number of you there bee who consider neither premisses nor conclusion but piteouslie torment Title Pages on euerie poast neuer reading farther of anie Booke than Imprinted by Simeon such a signe and yet with your dudgen iudgements will desperatelie presume to run vp to the hard hilts through the whole bulke of it Martin Momus and splaiefooted Zoylus that in the eight and sixt age of Poetrie and first yere of the reigne of Tarltons toies kept a foule stir in Poules Church-yard are now reuined againe and like want on Whelpes that haue wormes in their tungs slauer and betouse euerie paper they meete withall Yea if they chance but on a moate or a wind bladder they neuer haue done with it till they haue cleane bandied and tost it out of sight For my part I wish that I may be both out of their sight and out of their minde too and if their winy wits must needs be working that they would rather be Tailors to make than botchers or coblers to amend or to marre Come come I know their dull tricks wel inough you shal haue them lie in child bed one and thirtie weeks and eight daies of three bad lines and a halfe afterward spend a whole twelue month in spunging sprucing them honest thriftie Peter Littleton discharging their commons all the while but such poore fellowes as I that cannot put out money to be paid againe when wee come from Constantinople either must haue our work dispatcht by the weeks end or els we may go beg and yet I will not beg of them neither go the world neuer so hard no not so much as a good word but if in word or deed I hear that they wrong me Ile meet them right if I can And so I leaue them to stop mustard pots with my leaues if they will or to their owne will what soeuer THOMAS NASHE ⧠The Terrors of the Night OR A Discourse of Apparitions A Litle to beguile time idlely discontented and satisfie so me of my solitary friends heere in the Countrey I haue hastily vndertooke to write of the wearie fancies of the Night wherein if I weary none with my weak fancies I will herafter leane harder on my penne and fetch the petegree of my praise from the vtmost of paines As touching the terrors of the night they are as many as our sinnes The Night is the Diuells Blacke booke wherein hee recordeth all our transgressions Euen as when a condemned man is put into a darke dungeon secluded from all comfort of light or companie he doth nothing but despairfully call to minde his gracelesse former life and the brutish outrages and misdemeanours that haue throwne him into that desolate horrour so when Night in her rustie dungeon hath imprisoned our ey-sight and that we are shut seperatly in our chambers from resort the diuell keepeth his audit in our sin-guilty consciences no sense but surrenders to our memorie a true bill of parcels of his detestable impieties The table of our hart is turned to an index of iniquities and all our thoughts
participate with them insomuch as they confirme them in their furie congeale their mindes with a bloodie resolution Spirites of the earth they were that entred into the heard of swyne in the Gospel There is no citie merchant or country purchaser but is haunted with a whole hoste of these spirits of the earth The Indies is their Metrapolitane realme of abode As for the spirits of the aire which haue no other visible bodies or form but such as by the vnconstant glimmering of our eies is begotten they are in truth all show and no substance deluders of our imagination nought els Carpet knights politique statesmen women childrē they most conuers with Carpet knights they inspire with a humor of setting big lookes on it being the basest cowards vnder heauen couering an apes hart with a lions case and making false alarums when they mean nothing but a may-game Politique statesmen they priuily incite to bleare the worlds eyes with clowdes of common wealth pretences to broach any enmitie or ambitious humor of their owne vnder a title of their cuntries preseruation To make it faire or fowle when they list to procure popularity or induce a preamble to some mightie peece of prowling to stir vp tempests round about replenish heauen with prodigies and wonders the more to ratifie their auaritious religion Women they vnder-hand instruct to pownce and boulster out theyr brawn-falne deformities to new perboile with painting their rake-leane withered visages to set vp flaxeshops on their forheads when all their owne haire is dead and rotten to sticke their gums round with Comfets when they haue not a tooth left in their heads to help them to chide withall Children they seduce with garish obiects and toyish babies abusing them many yeares with slight vanities So that you see all their whole influence is but thin ouercast vapours flying clouds dispersed with the least winde of wit or vnderstanding None of these spirits of the ayre or the fire haue so much predominance in the night as the spirits of the earth and the water for they feeding on foggie-braind melancholly engender thereof many vncouth terrible monsters Thus much obserue by the way that the grossest part of our blood is the melancholy humor which in the spleene congealed whose office is to disperse it with his thicke steaming sennie vapours casteth a mist ouer the spirit and cleane bemasketh the phantasie And euen as slime and durt in a standing puddle engender toads and frogs and many other vnsightly creatures so this slimie melancholy humor still still thickning as it stands still engendreth many mishapen obiects in our imaginations Sundry times wee behold whole Armies of men skirmishing in the Ayre Dragons wilde beasts bloody streamers blasing Commets firie strakes with other apparitions innumerable whence haue all these their conglomerate matter but from fuming meteors that arise from the earth so from the fuming melancholly of our spleene mounteth that hot matter into the higher Region of the braine whereof manie fearfull visions are framed Our reason euen like drunken fumes it displaceth and intoxicates yeelds vp our intellectiue apprehension to be mocked and troden vnder foote by euerie false obiect or counterset noyse that comes neere it Heerein specially consisteth our senses defect and abuse that those organicall parts which to the minde are ordained embassadours doo not their message as they ought but by some misdiet or misgouernment being distempered faile in their report and deliuer vp nothing but lyes and fables Such is our braine oppressed with melancholy as is a clocke tyde downe with too heauie weights or plummets which as it cannot chuse but monstrously goe a square or not goe at all so must our braines of necessitie be either monstrously distracted or vtterly destroyed thereby Lightly this extreamitie of Melancholye neuer commeth but before some notable sicknesse it faring with our braynes as with Bees who as they exceedingly toyle and turmoile before a storme or change of weather so doo they beate and toyle and are infinitelie confused before sicknes Of the effects of melancholy I need not dilate or discourse how many encumbred with it haue thought thēselues birdes and beasts with feathers and hornes and hydes others that they haue been turned into glasse others that if they should make water they should drowne all the world others that they can neuer bleed inough Phisitions in their circuit euerie day meet with far more ridiculous experience Onely it shall suffise a little by the way to handle one speciall effect of it which is dreames A dreame is nothing els but a bubling scum or froath of the fancie which the day hath left vndigested or an after feast made of the fragments of idle imaginations How manie sorts there be of them no man can rightly set downe since it scarce hath been heard there were euer two men that dreamed alike Diuers haue written diuersly of their causes but the best reason among them all that I could euer picke out was this that as an arrow which is shot out of a bow is sent forth manie times with such force that it flyeth farre beyond the marke wherat it was aymed so our thoughts intentiuely fixt all the day time vpon a marke wee are to hit are now and then ouer-drawne with such force that they flye beyonde the marke of the day into the confines of the night There is no man put to any torment but quaketh trembleth a great while after the executioner hath withdrawne his his hand from him In the daye time wee torment our thoughts and imaginations with sundry cares and deuices all the night time they quake and tremble after the terror of their late suffering and still continue thinking of the perplexities they haue endured To nothing more aptly can I compare the working of our braines after we haue vnyoakt and gone to bed than to the glimmering and dazeling of a mans eyes when hee comes newly out of the bright Sunne into the darke shadow Euen as ones eyes glimmer and dazle when they are withdrawne out of the light into darknesse so are our thoughts troubled vexed when they are retyred from labor to ease and from skirmishing to surgerie You must giue a wounded man leaue to grone while he is in dressing Dreaming is no other than groaning while sleepe our surgeon hath vs in cure He that dreams merily is like a boy new breetcht who leapes and daunceth for ioy his pain is past but long that ioy stayes not with him for presently after his master the day seeing him so iocond and pleasant comes and dooes as much for him againe whereby his hell is renued No such figure of the first Chaos whereout the world was extraught as our dreames in the night In them all states all sexes all places are confounded and meete together Our cogitations runne on heapes like men to part a fray where euerie one strikes his next fellow From one place to another without consultation they leap