in Physical businesse is bound to stretch his wits soundly to understand it The consent of Soul and Body For it concerns every man to know and search out these things because a man is conversant in himself and may rest in the contemplation of himself For since a man consists of Soul and Body and the body is the Instrument of the soul whereby she doth her actions who ought not to have care and to observe both these parts who would not wish that both might be preserved the best he could since one cannot subsist without the other and perform its office and functions without offence For both do ask each others help we see Horat. in Art Poet. And by this means most friendly they agree The body for a time is transitory and mortal but since it is the vessel and receptacle of the Soul and useth its Ministery God hath also design'd that for eternity and by the mystery of the resurrection it shall be made partaker of the same gift that is of immortality as it is the will of God CHAP. III. It is most natural to procreate one like himself and men ought to use it reverently as a divine gift and Ordinance of God WHen God had made the Heavens and this sublunary world and framed them with so admirable wisdom and skill that there was nothing wanting for necessary uses commodity and pleasure it seemed good to him to make One that might have the use of them and that might delight in these things and enjoy them Wherefore when all the ornaments of nature were compleat and perfected he brought man into the world as into his own possession and that he might not lead a disconsolate life he gave a woman for an helper and companion Marriage Gods Ordinance and he put into them both force to love and a greedy desire of procreating their like having prepared for that purpose a swelling humour and spirit and organical parts and that the one should not be afraid or decline the society of the other he added allurements and a desire of mutual Embracing that when they did use procreation they should be sweetly affected and pacified wonderfull wayes For unlesse this were natural to all kind of Creatures that they should care for posterity and propagate their like mankind would quickly be lost nor could the affairs of mortalls long endure All men on earth and Beasts and Birds above Georg. 3. And Fishes of the Sea are mad with love What will a young man do whom Cupid burns He swims it 'h dark and tempestous night Ore the rough boyling Seas and nere returns Though Parents cry and billous would one fright Divers spurs to Venery Since this Passion is so forcible and so unruly that it can hardly be subdued and but a few can bridle their passions God granted unto man the use of the matrimonial bed that he might be bounded thereby and not defile themselves with wandring lust Wherefore God appointed Marriage who want the gift of Continency wherefore so soon as copulation is done and the Woman happens to prove with child great is natures cunning in fostering coagulating and framing the seed of both sexes that at the set time when nine moneths are run over Man that Ruler and Ornament of the whole world may come forth Job expressed this doubtful hope and first beginning of Nature Chap. 10. now going about to form a man by a most apposite similitude Hast thou not poured me forth as Milk and Crudled me as Cheese Thou hast compassed me about with skin and flesh thou hast made me with bones and sinews and my life is from thee and thy force hath upheld my breath Like to this is that saying of the wise Hebrew who describes the beginnings of his birth thus Wisd 7. I am also a mortal man like to other men the off spring of the first man on earth and I was made flesh in my mothers womb that came from coagulated blood in ten Moneths from the seed of man and the pleasure that comes with sleep And when I was born I drew in the common Ayre What are Mans beginnings and fell upon the earth which is of like nature and the first voice I uttered was crying as all others do By which we understand that in all other things as also in propagation of Children that all things must be done according to Natures order moderately All things must be done moderately As by the opinion of Hippocrates and Galen let motion or exercise precede meat after meat use venery after Venus sleep which being done the natural faculties do their parts in forming the child and the wearinesse that came by venery is abated by sleep which also helps concoction for sleep is a great help to facilitate concoction But as for that concerns the principles of Generation there is a great question controverted whether a woman afford seed to the generation of the child or whether manly force make any thing to the similitude of the form or difference of the fâ—x I shall first handle that concerning the form and similitude of it and afterwards of the female seed and what help it affords for procreation of the child And I shall do this the more accurately because there are some Bawds in our Countrey that would perswade women that Mothers afford very little to the generation of the child but onely are at the trouble to carry it and must endure the tedious time of nine Moneths Women do much in procteation of Children as if the womb were hired by men as Merchants ships are to be fraited by them and to discharge their burden By this perswasion women grow luke-warm and lose all humane affections toward their children and Love that was wont to be almost peculiar to this sex is quite banished But I think that such deserved to be held infamous and are not fit for honest womens company And would we punish them it should be done openly with all scorn and contempt For these are the cause that some are so cruel and barbarous to their children as to cast them forth and forsake them These are more cruel and savage than Tigers Lions Bears Panthers and other bruit beasts who bestow much labour to feed and bring up their young ones Math. 19. Force of Nature seen by Animals which our Saviour shewed by a Hen a domestick bird for all creatures will fight for their young ones and will venter their lives boldly for them I saw in these spring Moneths a Flock of 300. sheep which followed their bleating young ones that were carried away in a Ship from Land and were pulled from their Dams Udders Their Dams were not frighted with the Seas violence but with incredible desire followed till the Sea flowing up drownd them all An exhortation to humanity from the love of dumb beasts By this example I would have wicked unnatural Parents take heed and be admonished who
as we see the flowing and ebbing of the Ocean to break forth and dilate it self all abroad which although it be not plainly perceived in Summer daies and is less presented to the eyes yet thou dost perceive it either by smell or dost apprehend the hidden poyson in thy inmost bowells And as these very things work destruction to the body and bring in deadly poyson so sweet smells and fragrant hearbs do stir up the spirits and do cherish and recreate the heart it self the fountain of life Which even any one of a dull Judgment can perceive when he seeth the strength weakened by swounding and fast a sleep by the defect of the mind to be restored and stirred up by sweet smells But these mean things being let alone afterwards by the assistance of the most high God I will relate more secret things For which if I shall seem to any one to have wholly searched out the secrets of nature and the uses under weak and very unconstant reasons and a very small proportion of judgment and with no trimmed sentences to have furnished nature with no store I would desire him to be perswaded that I rather afford and demonstrate matter of writing to the learned then take it up before hand But I have attempted and undertaken to handle those things not with so great hope and confidence of accomplishing it as desire and will to try it and also that I might the better deserve of my Advocate and that I might more oblige my Citizens by this service But after Plato Persius doth stir up to attempt things of this kind and doth desire that this should be paid to our Countrey and Citizens as a due benevolence For so he doth prick us up to the consideration of things to the study of vertue to searth out those things which are profitable to men O wretched men ye ought to learn and show The cause of things and what we are to known Or to what end we 're made on earth to live What order or what bounds doth nature give To gentle-sliding Rivers and what measure Of silver or what 's lawfull to wish for pleasure What good doth money afford how much we owe Unto our Country and what we should bestow On neighbours what direction God doth give To thee how thou in humane things dost live Therefore I will try what I can perform or wherein I can go forward if I do not proceed in every thing exactly I may beg pardon for my fault and so much the more justly because the argument of the appointed Work is so great and doth stretch it self forth so unmeasurably so that it requires infinite labour and no mean Witt to accomplish every thing exactly The chief City of Laconia in Peloponnesus and adorn that * Sparta for its honour and amplitude Which if Horace in a homely and very easie argument Doth pardon faults which want of care doth cause Or are neglected by humane Nature's Laws By how much the more is it convenient to wink at and keep silent most things in so great difficulties and not to cut every thing as 't is said to the quick For it can scarcely be expressed how great wearinesse is to be born patiently by Physitians what labours are to be undergone what troubles complaints and bewailing speeches are to be endured at home and abroad when they follow their own affairs and diligently employ their assistance to their Citizens when all their study and industry doth consist in action their no lesse troublesome then gainful practice doth suffer no liberty no time to take breathe so that when they meditate on those things that were dispatched in borrowed hours that is in convenient service they are scarce at leisure to write them much lesse to make them perfect Which when it daily happeneth true and these kind of occupations do continually environ me at home and abroad all things scarcely and very hardly could be perfected according to my mind but when the consideration of Nature did onely delight me neither a more acceptable Argument could be thought upon it seemed good to me to write of its Miracles more at large and make all the Works of Nature more known Wherefore after I had dedicated these four Books of the Miracles of Nature to ERICUS King of Swedland the most invincible token of this New Year I do purpose to adde Two of the same Argument in short whereby the most Serene King having brought to an end and quieted the War which he undertook by Sea and Land against some conspiring Enemies by most excellent vertue and the greatnesse and courage of an high and invincible Mind might be refreshed more abundantly by the Contemplation of Nature and Things Having required this of William Simonds a Printer of Antwerp that he would bring these honourable and notable examples into the favour of the King's Court and of the desirous Reader which when he promised to accomplish and very truly performed by the industry of Christopher Plantin I think to finish the rest suddenly if it be so that no hindrance happen and our Heavenly Father grant constant and durable health For I hope it will be so that some new thing will come forth at the next Franckford Mart whereby at length the studious Reader may delight himself For Newes and Delight is the encouragement and allurement of Reading and Learning especially where the thing is declared very evidently and with convenient words and serious things are mixt with merry and profitable with sweet and pleasant which very thing I have studied to perform according to my power by that moderation of practice that I may no where digresse from comelinesse no where passe beyond the limits of honesty An Index of all the Chapters contained in this BOOK The Contents of the Chapters contained in the First Book Chap. 1. OF Nature Gods Instrument Page 1 Chap. 2. Man's Worth and Excellen Page 6 Chap. 3. It is most natural to procreate one like himself and men ought to use it reverently as a divine gift and Ordinance of God Page 8 Chap. 4. Of the likeness of Parents and Children whence it is that outward accidents are communicated to the Children and the Mothers Imagination is the cause of the production of many Forms Page 10 Chap. 5. Of the strange longing of Women with child and their insatiable desire of things And if they cannot get them they are in danger of life Page 16 Chap. 6. That a Woman doth afford seed and is a Companion in the whole Generation Page 18 Chap. 7. Whence growes the Sex and Kind that is whether of the two Man or Woman is the cause of a male or female Child Page 20 Chap. 8. Of Prodigious and Monstrous Births and by the way what is the meaning of the Proverb Those that are born in the fourth Moon Page 22 Chap. 9. By what means he that will may get a Boy or a Girle and by the by whence Hermaphrodites are bred and people
in the middle and pressed down they have a crestiâ—urining upward their tail doth not turn under their belly as we see it doth in mungrels but it stands upright and bends like a sickle he hath very great eyes and that stick forth and they are both blear eyes weak legs and that are crooked about the joynts but the hinder part of his body is smooth without any hair and their tail is seen very uncomely by those that are present and they will turn their tails on purpose for people to look on This small creature because it is ridiculous for its parts and manners and hath many things that may hurt a woman when she is with child and cause the child within her to be ill formed I think not fit to keep least Women with child should be wronged thereby But this monstrous form and limbs so crooked are not naturall but artificiall Women love dogâ— too well For men shut them up in small Cages and taking their food away they make them grow small as in Terence they took away meat from maids to make them grow small as bulrushes least if any of them should grow corpulent she should seem to be a Champion See your Juglers that passe the Countries use to wrest the limbs of young boyes that they may leap and dance the better Lately A History there was a notable Knave who carried a child to be seen from Town to Town which had a very great head all the other limbs bore no proportion with it This deformity when it is naturall and not by art Physitians call Hydrocephalon Very great heed what disease by reason of the head swoln with a watry humour When a woman great with child had looked on this picture she was so frighted with this unusual sight that when her â—â—â—e came to be delivered she brought forth a child with a spongy vast bead and it had like to have cost her her life And this mischief followed it that it grew greater in the Nurses arms till it became monstrous great The woman a â—e to me and made this complaint bringing the child with hot and when I pressed the head of it with my fingers it would sink down like to a cushions and come forth again These spectacles are not onely to be a â—oided by Women with child but also by all those that may beâ—â—roubled and frighted in their sleep by such frights as it commonly happens to children sick weak old melancholique people Whence Children have ill marks yet monstrous sights will hurt them lesse that they will women with child For they by the sights of such things will frame 〈◊〉 like in their Children For since all their forces and natural faculties are wholly employed to form the child it happens that when the woman is any way offended all the humours and spirits run downwards to the womb And when the imagination of a thing that sticks fast in the mind joyns with these it frames the like fashion on the child that the mind conceives A Proverb from Imagination For it is not said in vain Imagination makes fashion For by the same reason if a Mouse a Cat a Weasel leap suddenly on a Woman or Strawberries Cornel-berries Cherries Grape-stones fall on any part of the body When a Woman doth remove marks from the Face to the Thighs or hinder parts they presently leave their mark and the print of this thing will be printed on that limb unlesse the woman at the same time that these things happen to her body do presently wipe the part and put her hand behind her back or on some remoter part of her body For so the mischief is suddenly cured or the mark is made on that part she touched all her Imagination and natural faculty being turn'd thither CHAP. V. Of the strange longing of Women with child and their insatiable desire of things And if they cannot get them they are in danger of life THe order of the former narration seems to require me to speak something concerning the longing of Women Longing a Disease For they are both all most from the same cause About three Moneths after conception a disease troubles Women which the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latines Pica when by reason of cold vitious humours and sharp â—â—â—gm that lyes in their stomachs they earnestly desire coles parings chalk shels and other things unfit to eat this mischief prevails most when the childs hair first begins to grow and they are with child of a Girle For by reason of want of heat flegmatique humours are lesse concocted Hence it is that winds and often belchings frequently trouble Women Of kin to this is the daintinesse of Women wherewith men and Feavourish people are oft troubled But child-bearing Women that are tempted with this disease are so insatiable in their desire that if they cannot obtain what they long for they bring both themselves and their Child in danger of death Mayst Women long for strong things This disease for the most part troubles the Low Country Women because they are of moyst cold constitutions and feed on ill Nourishment There have been some in our dayes that when they saw a corpulent well â—â—d man they desired to bite at this shoulders A History and there was a man who that he might satisfie a womans longing granted her leave to bite least she might take any hurt whereupon she bâ—t out a part with her teeth and chewd it a little and then she swallowed it raw When she was not yet satisfied she desired to bite again but the man would not endure her But she presently began to languish and to be delivered She brought forth Twins the one living and the other dead for want of a second bite I can see no other reason for it than that the woman grieving in her mind the vitall spirits are lessned A Woman with child suffers if her longing be demed her and the humours appointed to nourish the child turn another way and are not carried to the womb so the child wanting the food which the mother longed for grows feeble and dies For when the passages and receptacles whereby food useth to be derived to the Matrix are stopped it must needs follow that the child will want nutriment and die But if the teeming woman be strong of nature and knows how to moderate her passions the child doth not die but grows sickly By these you may see abundantly what a womans Imagination can do and what outward objects conceived in the mind can print upon the child that is then to be formed When we must please sick people with diet Wherefore I suppose they do not much transgresse the bounds of Art that are not so rigid but do sometimes indulge to sick people such meat as they long for though they are not so proper for them in case they are such as will bring no great hurt to their bodies
of the Husbandman so the Infant receives all things more plentifully from the Mother For first the seed of them both is foster'd and heaped together in the womb then it growes up with the Mothers blood and increaseth by degrees secretly Hence it is that by sympathy Children love their Mothers most Why Children love their Mothers best for it proceeds from heaâ—nesse of Nature and because the Mothers forces were most employed about them Also Mothers are full of love to their Câ—ildren and more indulgent to their young ones than the Farâ—ers be who are oft-times more rigid I think the Evangelist meant so Math. 2. when he brings in Rachel lamenting for her Children who was so wounded in her mind with grief for being deprived of them Jer. 32. that she would by no means be comforted For there is nothing â—yâ— the opinion of Esaias more repugnant to Natures Laws than for a woman to forget her child Ch. 49. and to be cruel against the fruit of her womb laying aside natural affection We see that Fathers have their natural propension to their Children also but it is laâ—er before it appears For Fathers love them best when they are grown up and then they take most care for them when they begin to see some hopes of them But Mothers take more care of them in their Iâ—fancy and because that age stands in need of other's help most they are then the most loving and careful over them and not so curst as the Fathers be Math. 23. Stoâ—ks love their dâ—ms For this cause the Scriptures do so oft inviâ—er us to gratitude which by the example of Storks children do lowe to their Patents and we are commanded to requite them The like love we see in a Hen which loves the chickens A Hens siting she hate bed more dearly and though the Cock was the cause that the Eggs breed chickens yet he takes no care for them when they are hatched But that both yield seed we may prove in hen-eggs A Hen lays egs without a Cock. for a Hen will lay eggs without the Cock but if she sit on them they will sooner corrupt than hatch but the eggs the Hen laid when a Cock â—od her will after 19 dayes be hatched put under a Hen so that the Chickens will peep before the shell break This tedious Câ—ild-bearing time of the Mother in which for 9. moneths she feeds the Child with her purest blood and then her love toward her Child newly born and the usual likenesse of the Child to the Mother do clearly prove Women are not idle in making the child that women afford seed and that women do more toward making the Child than men do who onely injecting their seed are gone and neither further the woman nor help the child any more Yet in so many moneths the woman must do much to frame the child and nourish it Aeneid 6. For it cannot be that it should grow up from that congealed lump but by a wonderfull way CHAP. VII Whence growes the Sex and Kind that is whether of the two Man or Woman is the cause of a male or female Child God the chief cause of fruitfulnesse THough all things are justly ascribed to God that made all yet many things go in order by Natures rules and are carried by their imbred motion God being the Author of all these things he useth to alter many of them and to change the order of things and to bring forth some things in other forms and orders contrary to Natures Lawes For example a woman desiring a Man-child prayes unto God earnestly for it and God hears her prayers For example Sarah being past children Gen. 27. and her courses long since stayd yet she conceived Isaac by Abraham that was a very old man in which child God would have to be placed all hopes of his posterity and that hence all Nations should take the beginning of their happinesse Also Aâ—na being much afflicted with her long barrennesse 1 Reg. 1. by earnest and constant prayer she obtained Samuel from God Also Elisha's officious Landlady 4 Kings 4. by the prayers of the Prophet had a Child given her from God and afterwards he raised this Child that was dead to life again Luc. 1. So Zacharias being old by Gods dispensation had a Child by Elizabeth that was stricken in years and uncurably barren which was John the fore-runner of Christ So many others have pray'd to God for a Child to be their Heir in their Estates and God hath granted them their request None can doubt but this is Gods work and these things have a peculiar effect from the divine Will But we shall speak of things that proceed from natural causes and that nature useth to work by her imbred force For she prepares a body fit for the Souls condition and gives every thing its temper But since there are two principles out of which the body of man is made and which make the Child like the progenitors The force of seed and to be of this or that Sex Seed common to both sexes and Menstrual blood proper to the woman The similitude consists in the force of the male or female feed so that it proves like to the one or the other as the seed is more plentifully afforded by one or the other The force of the menstruall blood which belongs onely to the woman For were that force in the seed since the mans seed is alwaies stronger and hotter than the womans children would be all boyes Wherefore the kind of the creature is attributed to the Temperament of the active qualities which consist in heat and cold and to the substance or nature of the matter under them that is to the flowing of the menstrual blood Now the seed affords both force to beget and form the child and matter for its generation also in the menstrual blood there is both matter and force For as the seed most helps to the material principle so doth the menstrual blood to the potential Seed is saith Galen L. 2. de sem blood well concocted by the vessels that contain it so that blood is not onely the matter of generating the child but it is also seed in possiâ—ility Now that menstrual blood hath both principles that is both matter and faculty of effecting any thing is confessed by all But seed is the strongest efficient the matter of it being very small in quantity but the menstrual blood is much in quantity Menstrual blood affords matter to feed the child but the potential or efficient faculty of it is very feeble Now if the material principle of generation according to which the sex is made were onely in the menstrual blood then should all children be girles as if all the efficient force were in the seed they would all be boys But since both have both principles and in menstrual blood matter predominates in quantity and
in the seed force and vertue deservedly saith Galen the child receives its sex rather from the Mother than from the Father though his seed do afford something to the material principles but more weakly But similitude though Imagination be of great force therein is referred rather to the Father than the Mother for there is more force in the mans seed But the womans seed receiving faculty from the menstruall blood for 9. moneths doth as much exceed the man's as the man 's did the woman at first copulation For it is proper to the womans seed to strengthen and increase her own substance more than the mans So the woman not onely affords matter to make the Child but force and vertue to perfect the conception though the womans seed be fit nutriment for the mans feed by reason of the moysture and thinnesse of it and is more fit to frame and make up the conception thereby For as of soft running wax and moyst clay A Similitude from wax and moyst clay the workman can work what he will with his hand so the man's feed mixed with the womans seed and the menstruall blood helps effectually to make the form and perfects the parts of a man Or if you would have a comparison of these things from Natural things as the Earth is to plants so is the womb for conception A comparison of the Earth and the Womb. For as the seeds of Plants need the Earth to nourish and increase them so the seed of man requires the womb which is affected with a desire of an off spring For by the moysture thereof and by blood running forth at the veins to water the child it doth grow and increase Hence you may conjecture what art nature useth in conceiving and framing a child which by an innate force growes up by degrees and secretly increasing comes to its full strength wherein I think that worth the Enquiry by what force the nature of the woman makes a man or a woman what faculty seems to be ascribed rather to the woman than to the man by reason of more matter coming from her which consists in the blood and seed of the woman whereby the Child all the time it is in the womb is nourished and increased For as mans seed is the chief cause of motion and the Instrument and Artificer whereby Man is made yet the womans seed with the plenty of her menstrual blood affords more matter than the man doth and by help thereof the child is perfected and is distinguished for its sex for that is it makes a child a male or a female CHAP. VIII Of prodigious and Monstrous Births and by the way what is the meaning of the Proverb Those that are born in the fourth Moon THe Nature of Man and his parts destinated to the Generation of man if they be rightly disposed and there be no defect in them will beget a perfect man But if they be defective or faulty or the feed be confusedly mixed Whence come Monsters or the principles of Generation be otherwise involved than they should be it falls out that prodigious and monstrous births are made Some fay that these things happen from the influence and aspects of the Stars and as just judgments for sins And I think it very consonant to truth For they commonly happen from a faulty constitution of the Womb from filthy corrupt seed A simile from Founders and disorderly copulation For as in the art of melting meâ—â—als if the matter be not pure and well cleansed if the vessel or receiver be oblique full of windings ill joynted hath conners is set awry or is full of chinks or plains is unloosed or holds ill together we see that men cast ridiculous and improper figures so if the places be ill appointed if the womb inclines to one side or the matter be unfit or ill tempered nature shall never make a fit and decent form So the Low Countrey Women chiefly those that live near the Sea-side being restlesse and troubled in copulation A Mola of the Matrix they have strange mishapen Embrio's and do not onely bring forth rude and deformed burdens not made up that no sword will cut but also something deformed that pants and is alive and is like the imperfect draught of a figure that Artists use to draw with a rude Pensil For Marriners which they commonly marry when they come from long voyages run mad upon their wives with full sail Intemperance of Venery burts the child never regarding their menstrual courses nor the Conjunction or new Moon at which time by reason of their terms copulation useth to be hurtfull for the seed cannot stick together nor be fitly united with the womans blond whence it comes to passe that the seed either runs forth or if it chance to stick together nature cannot make up any thing rightly of a confused matter that sticks not so as it should do And not onely the mens incontinence is to be found fault with but also of the women who having waited so long in their absence do voluntarily put themselves upon their husbands and snatch the seed from them as hungry dogs do a bone or Cerberus his bait Whence it comes that the faculty of the Womb loseth its force to generation and successe of breeding a child Or if it try to do any thing it makes some monstrous form that is nothing like to the shape of a man sometimes after three Moneths space that filthy matter runs forth and an undigested heap comes out by pieces as filthy water out of a Ship by the Pump Not unlike to this is an efflux that troubles women with many heavy torments our women because this conception begins in the fourth Moon when she is in Conjunction by whose force the terms flow down call it a Moon birth or Manekinds A birth not natural is cast forth Sometimes this false conception is made without the help of man by Imagination onely in those that are very lascivious so as by often seeing their Husbands and but touching them the womans seed will mix together with the blood and the neat of the Womb will begin to frame something like to a living Creature But the formal cause the mans seed being wanting that is like the Work-master the matter the woman affords Mans seed is the former of the child obtains a strange deformed shape sometimes the like is made by the help of the man when in the sourth and silent Moon he copulates with his wife and on the fourth day after the Moons Conjunction when her courses run not observing natures rules for he strives against the flux and sails against the stream A common proverb to pisse against the Moon Our people by a Proverb call it pissing against the Moon the Latines call them Born in the fourth Moon Because they have unhappy beginnings of their life and had their first entrance by generation contrary to natures order whence it happens
them a barren womb and dry breasts their root shall wither and they shall bring forth no fruit and if they do bring forth I will destroy the most dear of their Children Which must teach us all that if God be offended all means are vain and the successe will be unprofitable Ch. 8. Idolatry and super stition causes of barrenness God threatens the like in Ezekiel to superstitious women because they wept for Adonis Venus's Lover who was rent by a Boar about the privities and his Statue was set up and they adored him But if God be not angry with men and lets Nature have her ordinary course we may use outward means and help Natures weaknesse if from any secret cause one be hindred from Children What perfects genetion Wherefore there are two things especially that perfect copulation and that help to beget Children First the genital humour which proceeds partly from the brain and the whole body and partly from the Liver the fountain of blood Then the spirit that comes by the Arteries from the Heart by force whereof the yard is erected and growes stiff and by the force whereof the seed is ejected To this may be added the appetite and desire of copulation which is excited either by Imagination or by sight and feeling of handsome women Whosoever wants these helps or hath them feeble must so soon as may be use means to restore nature and to correct this errour and repair the forces as when there is a luxation or disjoynting in any part A Similitude from Husbandry For as we see barren fields grow fruitfull by tilling and mans industry and unfruitfull Trees and Plants by pruning and dunging grow very plentifull in fruit So in dressing this ground the Physical art is much to be observed that with great skill cures the defects of Nature and restores this barren field to bring forth fruit again as it were by dunging it when the heart of it was almost quite worn out So it restores the faint heat and the weak spirits coldnesse and drinesse of the genital parts and reduceth the weaknesse of the nerves to their temperament and it doth farther do all things that may serve to remove all impediments of procreation of Children But since that dyet may change the Elementary qualities and may alter the unhappy state of the body to a better it is necessary that such people should eat onely such meat as will make them fruitful for propagation What meats cause seed and stir up venery Amongst such things as stir up venery and breed seed for generation are all meats of good juice that nourish well and make the body lively and full of sap of which faculty are all hot and moist meats For the substance of seed as Galen saith is made of the pure concocted and windy superfluity of blood Matter of heaping up seed There is in many things a power to heap up seed and augment it other things are of force to cause erection and drive forth the humour Meats that afford matter are Hen-eggs Pheasants Thrushes Blackbirds Gnat-sappers Wood-cocks young Pigeons Sparrows Partridges Capons Pullets Almonds Pine-Nuts Raisins Currans all strong Wines that are sweet and pleasant especially made of grapes of Italy which they call Muscadel But the genitals are erected and provoked by Satyrium Eryngo's Cresses Erysimum Parsnips Hartichokes Onions Turneps Rapes Asparagus candid Ginger Galanga Acorns Scallions Sea shel-fish And Rocket that is next Priapus set Colum. l. 10. That makes the man his Wife with Child beget A sit Similitude from Guns These as many more will make men lusty For as we see Guns first charged with powder and then with bullets and lastly some fine powder is put in the pan and fire is given with a Linstock and the bullet is forced out with a violent noise so in this work two things must needs concur that our labour be not lost namely that there be plenty of seed and a force of a flatulent spirit whereby the seed may be driven forth into the Matrix But if these Engines be broken or nothing worth or the Gun-powder be adulterated and naught they can have no force to break down walls and Trenches and Ramparts not do they roar horribly but make a small hissing and empty noise as bladders of boys at play do when they are blown up Hence some of our lascivious women will say that such men that trouble their wives to no purpose do thunder The Womans Proverb but there follows no rain they do not water the inward ground of the matrix They have their veins puffed up with wind but there wants seed Wherefore if husbands will win their wives love by especiall service they must be well prepared to enter this conflict for if they fall short How Wives are pleased they shall find their wives so crabbed and touchy that there will be no quiet But when they are well provided they must take the opportunity of doing their businesse well And that is when the monethly terms are over For that sink hinders their seed from coagulating and fermenting and makes the womb unfit to conceive When therefore the Terms are over and the womb is well cleansed they must use no unlawful copulation or violent concussions in begetting children and when the work is over the woman must gently and softly lye down on her right side with her head lying low her body sinking down and so fall to sleep When a Boy is begot For by this means the seed will fall to the right side and a boy will be made Yet the time of the year the Climate the age of both parties the heating dyet are of great concernment here For the Summer if it be not too hot is fittest for the conceiving of boys because the seed and menstruall blood receive more heat from the Ayr about them Also a hot Countrey ripe years and lusty and hairy bodies are fittest to beget boys Also there are many things that by a speciall and hidden quality are fit for this purpose So Mercury What herb Mercury can do that is divided into male and female is held to be most effectuall in producing Children of the same kind with it so that the decoction of juice of the Male drank four dayes from the first day of purgation will give force to the womb to procreate a male Child but the juice of the Female drank for so many dayes and in the same manner will cause a female to be born especially if the man lye with his wife when the Terms are newly over I think it is because the one purgeth the right side of the matrix and the other the left and fosters it with heat So it comes to passe that the cold humour being taken away the woman is made fit for conception A Similitude from the Earth For as in boggy and watry grounds the seeds of Plants are drown'd nor do they easily grow
men to lie with women that time that they were defiled with this Excrement So he drives from the company of men those that have Gonorrheas that is fluxes of bloud and commands them to be purified And Esaias to expresse extream foulnesse to be abhorred All our righteousnesse saith he is as a menstruous rag c. Which though it be true We must abstain from menstruous Women and and the great Law-giver by Gods order did most justly forbid it that no man should defile himself with fowl copulation or be polluted thereby yet this proves not that this flux is superfluous and doth not serve for the childs nutriment For Hippocrates the Authour of Physick and Galen a great lover of it do rightly professe in many places that the menstrual bloud feeds the child and that the child grows by receiving that flowing out of the veins De tuenda valetudine So Galen Blood saith he and genital seed are the beginnings of our Generation which arise from the very principles as from a root The blood is as fit matter that obeys the Artificer the seed is as the Workmaster Again in comment Aphoris The menstruall blood is one principle of our Generation and is by nature moist L. 1. Aph. 14. Hitherto belongs that Aphorism of Hippocrates If a Woman with child have her courses the child cannot be well For the blood is taken thus from her that is directed to the womb from all the body to feed the child If therefore the courses running away weaken the child and defraud him of his nourishment it must needs be that they do good when they are stopt and serve to feed the child all the while it is in the womb The Breasts fill with milk when the terms stop If they do no good and the child hath no nutriment from them I pray what is the cause that the courses are stopt in women with child and such as give suck and that without any hurt to them There can be no other cause given but that they are consumed to make plenty of milk or to feed the child But to explain this question the more fully I shall set down this dilemma If the courses confer nothing to feed the child The Authours dilemma of the monethly terms then women may conceive though they want their courses for nature can draw blood from the veins to feed the child But if they do help to feed and increase the child they cannot conceive unlesse they do run Aristotle excellently unties this knot Hist Animal Women saith he conceive naturally after their terms are over and they that want their terms are commonly barren Yet it may be that some may conceive that have them not namely as many as have so much humour collected in their wombs as useth to remain with those that are purged For some have the humour remaining in the womb but not so much as to break forth and run out yet enough to feed the child For many when the courses run do conceive but they cannot conceive afterwards for their Matrix presently after purgation closeth and the places are no longer open De vul se Galen clearly explains the same in these words The vessels of the Matrix that penetrate into the inmost part from whence flow the terms when the woman is about to conceive open their orifices But the time of conception is when the terms begin or at least end For though the rest of the time of purging these orifices are open yet the woman can by no means conceive because the seed cannot stay in the womb but is washt away by the blood that runs in so plentifully But when the terms end or begin the orifices are open and the menstrual blood runs not by streams but gently forth by little and little as by a dewy humour sweating in whereby the Matrix is moistned whence it is that the seed sticks to the roughnesse of the womb and nourishment enough follows by the dropping of bloud that flowes thither For before the Terms flow conception cannot be made because the nourishment is wanting nor doth the seed stick fast for at that time the vessels being shut the matrix is smooth and the seed by reason of smoothnesse like glasse polished runs away and cannot stick and unite for roughed things are fitter than smooth things to sodder together Why Whores conceive not Hence it is that whores by frequent lying with men do not conceive To which appertains that sentence of Hippocrates Those that have moyst wombs do not conceive L. 5. Aphor. 62. for the seed is drown'd in these as corn is in wet grounds Likewise they that have over-dry matrixes are unfit to bear children for it is necessary that the parts should be wet with the dropping of the menstrua I do not now discusse the matter what strong arguments they insist upon who think the terms not needfull to nourish the Child Let them hold their opinion but I can never believe that this humour is unprofitable and doth not serve toward the Childs generation For since all women that are in perfect health have their courses at set times what can we think but that this humour runs forth for some end and is not venomous unlesse it stay beyond Natures time in the body or it be restrain'd by some disease or accident So in plethorick bodies that is Continual Feavers such as are full of humours pure blood if it be not ventilated corrupts and causes a putrid feaver and other next to contagious diseases as the small Pox and Measels A Simile from houses shut up so we see houses long shut and not cleansed by the wind to grow musty and smell filthily Since therefore the terms are an excretion of superfluous blood which the weaknesse of that sex can neither concoct by heat nor discusse by exercise it must needs break forth by the Moons urging of it at a set time and by the running out thereof the body is cleansed and if it chance to be stopped longer it growes venomous by corrupting But it is not so in Nurses or women with child What menstrua are venemous for it is a strong argument because that humour is usefull in its time and fit to nourish the Child but that is not so that by long stay corrupts in the body But because after conception it drops from the veins into the womb and feeds the Child all the time the Woman is great with child if the womb should lye open or the terms any way run from it the Child cannot live or would grow very weak CHAP. XI The Soul comes not from the Parents Seed but is infused by God and can neither dye nor corrupt what day of Child-bearing it is infused How the mind raiseth it self toward God THe Soul of Man is by no means more invited to love God nor can know it self better than by searching into it self and when it doth
no man living shall be justified If thou Lord shouldst observe what is done amisse who might abide it but with thee there is mercy and plenteous redemption Despair must be cast away CHAP. XV. Whether there be a reasonable Soul infused into monstrous births and to abortives and whether they shall rise again to life And by the way from whence Monsters proceeed ALl those that are like men and according to the order of being born received from our first Parents by that way and means proceed from both Sexes though they are monstrous in shape and deformed in body Deformity unmans no man have notwithstanding a reasonable soul and when they have run the race of this short life they shall be made at last partakers of the Resurrection But those that are not from man but by mixing with other Creatures and exercise their Actions otherwise than men do shall neither be immortal nor rise again So the wood-gods Satyrs houshold gods Centaurs Fairies Tritons Sirens Harpies and if fabulous antiquity hath invented any other things of this nature they have neither rational souls nor enjoy the benefit of the Resurrection There are indeed amongst so many millions of men many that are deformed in body and are of an horrid aspect with hogs snowt and uncomely Jaws yet all these though they are far from the natural shape of Man are referred to the number of men For they speak discourse judge remember and perform other offices of the Soul and perfect their actions after the manner of men though they somewhat degenerate from mans dignity and his imbred force of Nature Whence monstrous shapes proceed Now a Monstrous habit of body is contracted divers wayes For fear frights influence of the Stars too much or too little seed Imagination of women with child and divers phantasms which the mind conceives deform the body and cause Children to be of a shape not proper to the Sex Sometimes the whole course of Nature is changed either when the seeds are vitiated or the Instruments be unfit so that the natural faculties to propagate and form the Child cannot perform their offices exactly A Simile from the Industry of an Artificer For as the most Industrious Artist cannot bring to perfection a work happily begun where the matter is naught or the Instruments are dull so Nature wanting the forces of her faculties or not having a fit matter doth all things ill and fails of her end Some there are that by their operation do make some parts of the body otherwise than Nature made them So in Asia as Hippocrates testifies Of Ayr and places there were great heads that the Nurses made their heads to be long figured for that they thought was a sign of a noble and generous spirit as a Hawk nose was amongst the Persians whereby at length it came to passe that though the Midwives ceased to presse the childrens heads yet nature whilest she was forming the child agreed with the ancient custome and what they did by great Industry Nature did of her own accord Also nutriments and the qualities of the outward Ayr make some parts deformed So they that dwell in cold moyst Countries have great heads great bellies fat bodies Countries change the conditions of Soul and Body babber lips swoln cheeks Many Countries produce Pigmies and little men very short Other Countreys produce people with great throats and scrophulous tumours with flat noses crooked legs Yet though many things be wanting in these people and the parts be either ill framed or wrested amisse yet because they are born of women and some force of reason shines in them and they are led by the same Laws of Nature Orthodox Divines say There is a rational soul in them and that they shall rise again The Resurrection will restore bodies deformed to their right shape And by rising again they shall lay aside all deformities of their bodies that were ill favoured to behold and be well formed like as men are and all lame crooked imperfect limbs shall be made perfect And though in some the force of reason shines lesse because of the unaptnesse of the organ as in children old men drunkards mad-men in whom the force of the Soul is hindred or oppressed Yet every one of them hath a reasonable soul and what is defective shall be made up at the resurrection But imperfect and abortive births and all mischances where the limbs are not fashion'd or very imperfectly because these want the reasonable soul they cannot be call'd men nor shall they rise again Difference between abortion and a mischance Physitians make a difference between abortion and a mischance For a running forth of a mischance is when the seeds were for some dayes joyn'd in the womb but by the slipperinesse and smoothnesse of it they run forth again before they come to make a perfect shape so that a rude unframed mass runs out that was the rudiments of a Child that should have been and a shadow of what was begun but it was cast out untimely as seeds and buds from trees that bear not fruit to maturity But Abortion oft-times shews the parts of the Infant perfectly made up which when it is 42 dayes old is endowed with a rational Soul and is alive Whence if it chance to be cast forth by some sudden accident it shall one day rise again For though many things be wanting in it and it is not come to its full magnitude yet in the Resurrection all shall be made up that time would have produced A Simile from children increasing And as children have many things in possibility that with progresse of time and increase of years do shew themselves as teeth nails hair and full stature of body which by faculty of the seed increases by degrees and come to perfection so in the Resurrection all things wanting in the body and parts that are imperfect shall be made perfect Whosoever therefore is born of the seed of man and not from some foul matter or vitious humours concurring though he be of a monstrous body and ill favoured shape yet shall he rise again from death to life all faults being repaired by vertue of the Resurrection and framed decently for that Omnipotent Work-master of all things Makes nothing weak Prudentius who doth the body raise For were there fault it were not for his praise What is by chance or sicknesse or by care Or otherwise decay'd he will repair Nothing is impossible to God For that is easie for him who made all things of nothing For as Augustine saith It is more easie to create men than to raise them when they are dead It is more to give that a being that never was than to repair what was before And the earthly matter never is perished in respect of God who can easily restore to its former nature what is vanished into the Ayr and other Elements or what leannesse or hunger hath consumed or
accompany one untill Death that is it never ends till death put an end thereto Since therefore the cause of the Falling-sicknesse is so Evident The habit of Epileptick persons terrible I would perswade the ignorant people to think of no other cause of this disease than the motion of the humours that men may not fear so much when they see their mouths draw awry their cheeks swoln and strutting forth with a frothy humour and should not be dismaid to come near them and lend them their help For so are all those that stand by and are fearful amazed when they see them rending themselves and beating their heads and bodies against posts that they think there is no hopes of them and so cause them to be buried before their Souls are departed from them For I have found it in our own dayes and in former Ages also that some have broken the Coffin and lived again Wherefore it is fit a Law should be made that those who are to take care of the dead bodies should not presently put them into their coffins whom they think to be dead Apoplecticks are not to be presently buried especially those that are strangled by the Apoplex Epilepsie or rising of the Mother for oft-times their soul lies within them and they live again But when the Plague and pestilent Feavers rule Men dead of the Plague must be presently enterred I think it not necessary nor fit to observe this so strictly because the contagion will presently spread when they are dead and infect those that are near For there is lesse danger to stand by those that have the Plague and to attend upon them when they are alive than to stand by them when they are dead A fit Simile from Candles put out for then the contagion spreads and infects as it goes For it is with bodies newly dead as with Torches and Candles that whilest they are lighted they do not stink but when they are put out they fill the room with a stinking savour Wherefore the danger is greater to be present when a man dies of the plague than when he is yet alive or dead and grown cold and stiff But if you keep these bodies a little too long unburied they become stinking Carkasses and they do by little and little send forth filthy exhalations and corrupt filthy matter runs from them which happens but seldome in the Apoplex and other cold diseases of the brain The motion and revolution of humours in such as are dead unlesse it be very hot weather or the bodies be very fat And if there be no such matter to hinder they need not be buried till three dayes be over For when seventy two hours are over the humours cease to move and stir not because in that time the Moon hath passed one sign in the Zodiack by force whereof the humours run in the body which some say was the reason that Christ took occasion to raise Lazarus miraculously that was dead four dayes John 11. lest any man should say he was not dead but onely in a trance and come to himself again Why Christ raised Lazarus no sooner Also when he by his Death and Resurrection wrought mans salvation he took the same occasion For besider that he had a mortal wound on his side he lay three dayes in the Sepulchre to take away all objections from them who would speak irreverently and not as they ought concerning his Death and Resurrection but calumniate all he said or did In which errour and madnesse the Jews continue even to this day But since those diseases are so formidable that bereave a man of his understanding that all the standers by are frighted at it I shall do a considerable work to add some present remedies and those not ordinary whereby every one that is unskilful in Physick may preserve himself and his family from them And because all diseases of the brain especially such as proceed from a cold humour are near of kin these remedies may be used to them all indifferently as to losse of memory vertigo's panting of the heart trembling Epilepsies Lethargies Apoplexies and for the hag and night mare and other diseases of the night which disease is called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amongst innumerable remedies against these diseases I have found four especially to be most effectuall Remedies for the Night-mare not so much approved by experience as by reason The round black Piony seed for the corner'd and red colour'd seed is uselesse herein the round bulbous root of Squils the shavings of mans skull and Misseltoe I should shew severally how they perform these effects The force of Pionie and by what reason they perform it Galen eryes up Pionie as much as Cato did Coleworts which not onely by an Elementary quality but from the whole substance of it and secret property resists this disease And it will raise children that fall because it is not so strong in them if it be but banged about their necks For it discusseth and consumes the flegmatique humour that is the seminary of this disease Also the seeds of this given inwardly will do it more effectually in such as are of years For it drinks up the windy venemous miosture and brings the body to a hotter and dryer temper Some say this seed is the best that comes from the first increase of the male Pionie For a long time it brings forth unprofitable shoots without seed But when it is of perfect growth the husks cleave and in one part you shall see berries very smooth and black in another kernels of a shining scarlet red colour The black seed must be kept for use Yet not so superstitiously as to hold that the seed of the next year is uneffectual for that seed that comes after ten years is a present remedy if it be not rotten and decay'd What sorce Squills have in the Epilepsie Squills are better than Pionie and have a wonderfull force and faculty not onely for the Epilepsie but also for all diseases that proceed of a clammy viscous humour in what part soever of the body For it hath an abstergent force to dissolve all clammy things For which use I use to give a spoonful of an oxymel that I make of it which because it is exceeding bitter I use to mingle it with syrup of French Lavender and I put in a little Nutmeg to it also I command them to wash their mouthes with vinegar of Squills so as to swallow it down by degrees Also I find that the shavings of mans skull are a present remedy to dry up those humours that cause those diseases if some part of a mans skull scraped off be given to a man or of a womans skull to a woman and that in wine or Oxymel of Squills not by any hidden quality but because it dryes exceedingly for which cause the runner and blood of a Hare stayes the bloody flux and other fluxes of
is because a woman hath a great belly sticking forth and larger receptacles and her belly intestines urinary passages are more open and her breasts more spungy and swoln which because they are fill'd with abundance of humours the belly is made heavy and being thus stretched with the water inclines downwards A Simile from floting bladders Which thing we see in bladders and vessels that are stopped that part of them which contains the Ayr flotes upward but where the water is contain'd that part is downwards The same you may see in an Egg An Egg and Ambergreece put into brine will swim that cast upon salt brine will flote but that part where the weight is will sink but the part filled with Ayr namely that which when the shell is broken is empty when they grow old and rotten it will swim a top But unlesse nature had given larger passages and receptacles to this fex A woman hath larger passages than a man I pray how could copulation be done what could help conception and carrying the child in the womb for secretly by reason of this the matrix swells and the child growes what remedy were there for painful labour in child-birth where the parts must be stretched forth and dilated that the child may come forth with more ease what lastly would serve for the childs nourishment unlesse the womb and entrance of it were so made unlesse the curious and so handsomely swelling forth breasts that are so full of millk were made for that use Since therefore a woman hath all her passages and cavities larger and drinks in much moysture it must be that that part should sink downward that is most loaded with water But a man hath narrow guts streight urinary passages and is more endanger'd by the stone than a woman is hath his abdomen not so much stretched out his hip bones are strong and weighty his arms are strong and his shoulders large his back bone is fast with the spondils joyn'd together his Lungs are hollow and large whence it is that men have a loud and deep voice Why men have a strong voice and women a shrill voice but women have a small shrill voice because their breast is narrow All these things undoubtedly cause a man to swim on his back and a woman on her belly For by nature all heavy things fall downwards and light things upwards And I think that is the cause that men that are drown'd cannot come above water presently For when their bodies are full of water and kept down by the weight of the water they cannot come up because there is no ayr in them Why men drowned do not rise presently and all the spirit is driven forth by the abundance of water But in 7. or 9. dayes the body will flote for it is dissolved and corrupts and the lungs gather much Ayr. Hence it is What day men drown'd will swim that our common people use to say that on the 9th day when a man's gall is broken he will rise above water not that his gall bladder is broken but because the humours run forth of that and other moyst parts that are flagging whence the body when the flesh is rarified flotes and the lungs that are hollow like a spunge taking in a great deal of Ayr raise the body above the water For this part ballances and sustains bodies floting on the water and the larger lungs a man hath and the more holes are in them the longer a man can hold his breath and stay at the bottom of the water a longer time I heard Dr. Vesalius a man of excellent wit and learning relate A memorable thing of a Moor. that a Moor that was a urinator was brought to Ferrat out of a galley that could alone continue his voyce longer and hollow without taking breath than any four of the strongest Men Again he would stop his breath and his nostrils and hold his mouth close and not breathe at all longer than all they could By which gift of nature he won thus much that being oft times taken he still escaped and like a Dydapper he would for half an hour lye at the bottom of the Sea and shake off his yoke of captivity that was more bitter than death Large capacious Lungs will do thus much for a man that he shall soon run a Journey What good comes from large Lungs that if he can swim he can lye longer upon the waters and if he fall into any deep River he will not be so soon drown'd and when he is drown'd he will flote in a few daies And if these bellows of breath be taken out when a man is dead as I hear some Pyrats have done he will stay at bottom and never swim up again because he wants the benefit of the Ayr. CHAP. VII The bodies of those that are drown'd when they swim up and come to be seen as of those that are murdered when their friends are present or the murderers they bleed at the nose and other parts of their body The dead will bleed SInce there are many things in Nature that will make us to wonder I think this is one of the chief that blood will run out of the wounds of one that is slain if he be present that gave the wound and is guilty of the murder and that drowned bodies taken out of the waters will bleed at some parts if any of their friends be nigh and the blood is commonly so red and lively as though the faculties and vital spirits that agitate the humours were not yet defunct For that is observed by the Magistrates and the Rulers of all the Low-Countries who are wont to be present to take notice of dead bodies however they came to die before they be buried But how this should be it is no easie matter for any man to resolve I know that in dead people for a time there remains a vegetable force whereby their hair and nails increase imbred moysture affording nutriment to outward heat So Plants and shrubs cut off will grow green for some dayes and bear flowers if they chance to be moystned with water Plants cut up growing for a time For there is an imbred force in stalks which they have from the root and when that is gone the leafs wither and grow dry and fall off So it may be that the blood lying hid in the veins may break forth when the body is stirred For we see such men carryed up and down by Porters and to be set with their faces sometimes upwards sometimes downwards and tossed to and fro Whence it may be the veins mouths are opened and the blood that hath not yet put off its natural colour may run out But from those that are long dead and late found not red blood but bloody corrupt matter runs forth of the wound of him that is slain But if they dyed by a fall or were lilled by something falling on them
covered with blood which affect when it passeth to the child that membrane becomes of divers colours and fashions Whence comes beauty or foulnesse This also makes children to have chins and cheeks red as a rose Which then useth to happen when the great bellied women blush or are angry their blood being raised by natural heat and carried aloft For such as are frighted or suddenly put into fear they are the cause of a pale colour and frame the child with an austere and sad countenance CHAP. IX Why in Holland they say that such as have unconstant and weak brains have been conversant amongst beans IF at any time the Low-Countrey people will set forth a man of an unconstant brain The Proverb to wander amongst beans and unsetled mind who in his manners gestures words and deeds and all his actions is like a mad-man they will say he hath been amongst the beans and it is their common Proverb the beans flourish he wandreth amongst beans and this is applied to weak brain'd men that want judgment and reason For we see in the spring-months when bean-stalks begin to flowre that some men will grow mad and speak many ridiculous and absurd things and sometimes they grow so mad that they must be bound in chains For at the begining of the spring the humours begin to overflow and to choke the brain with grosse fumes and vapours which when bean flowrs do exasperate if they smell to them the mind begins to rave and to be troubled with furies For though bean flowrs smell sweet and pleasant Why bean flowers hurt the brain yet they offend the head and will at great distance send forth an offensive smell especially to those that have weak brains and are filled with a cholerick and melancholiqve humour Whereupon some of these are disquieted and wander then they grow clamorous and full of words and others again are pensive and alwaies musing Their head stands stiff Pers sat 3. their eyes sixt on the ground They mumble silently and eat the sound Their lips thrust forth their words they do confound And as some things dissipate fumes and discusse what is hurtfull to the brain and raise the fainting soul and spirits that are sleepy as Vinegar Rose-water wherein Cloves are steeped new bread wet in well sented wine for these breath forth a thin and pleasant ayre so other things cause pain and make the head heavy as Garlick Onions Leeks Elder Worm-wood Rue Southern wood What things cause the headacâ—â—e and many spices that send forth strong heavy fumes and offend the brain violently affecting the Nostrils Which Hippocrates shewd in this Aphorism The smell of spices draws the secrets of women L. 5. Aph. 28. and it is good for many other things but that it offends the head and makes it heavy For all things very odoriferous hurt the head and draw the heat and moysture to the upper parts even the very smels that evaporate from cold plants especially in those that are lean and decayed in their flesh For they cannot endure the smells of their meats and of boil'd flesh and when they faint and swound they will suffer nothing to be put to their nostrils that is of a sharp and piercing nature so that they seem to be suffocated by a grosse thick vapour as those that sit down in a dinining room that is filled with smoak whose breath is stopped and intercepted An example from smoaky houses unlesse the dores be set open and fresh Aire be let in the windows that the house may be Ayr'd and the wind may passe in and our Those that dwell near lakes are of another temper than these tender bodies and such as are made to empty Jakes and make clean sinks For these men reject all sweet smels as offensive unto them So Strabo writes that amongst the Sabaeans L. 6. those that are offended with sweet odours are refreshed with bitumen and the smell of Goats hair on their beards when it is burnt Aridiculous thing of a Countryman A certain Country-man at Antwerp was an example of this who when he came into a shop of sweet smells be began to faint but one presently clapt some fresh smoking warm hors-dung to his nose and fetched him again CHAP. X. Every strong filthy smell is not hurtfull to man For some of these will discusse contagions and resist corrupt diseases By the way whence came the Proverb that horns are burnt there MAny things are of a most filthy smell which yet do no ways hurt the body nor cause any corruption in it and they will resist some diseases and discusse the faulty troublesome Ayre and vapours as Castoreum Galbanum Sagapenum the dregs of Masterwort called Asafaetida Bean Trifoly Brimstone Gunpowder the fumes of burnt horns and skins Ill smells sometimes usefull For these are of a strong filthy sent but they cause no contagion but they represse and strike back the filthy sents and pestilent vapours which lakes and standing waters and the hearb Camarina and stinking earth send forth Also by the smell of these they raise young maids that are in a swound when they are troubled with the strangling of the mother when being fit for marriage they are forced to stay for Husbands But filthy smels that rise from dead carcases and muddy waters cause corrupt diseases and infect the Ayre by reason of heat and moisture but not the vapours of those that tend to drinesse Hence our Country people cast snips of leather horns and wet bones into the fire Ill smells sometime resist the Plague and with those sents they Ayre their houses to dispell the contagion of diseases and keep themselves and their cottages free from pestilent Ayres Hence came the Proverb that Horns are burnt there A Proverb that horns are burnt Whereby they signifie that places infected with contagious diseases must be avoided Such a kind of remedy in former times was used about Tourney when the Plague cruelly raged all the Town over A history that is true done about Tournay For the Souldiers of the Garrison in the Fort fill'd their Guns with Gunpowder without bullets and shot against the Town and they shot them off with a lighted match about the evening and morning whence it hapned that by the great noise and strong smell the contagion of the Ayre was removed Fire dispells contagions of the Ayre and the City delivered from the Plague For this is as powerfull to dispell contagions of the Ayre as Hippocrates remedy by making bon-fires and burning many fagots in the streets could be CHAP. XI The excellency of the finger of the Left hand that is next the little finger which is last of all troubled with the Gout and when that comes to be affected with it death is not far off By the way wherefore it deserves to wear a Gold Ring better than the rest PHysitians grant that all parts of the body that are affected
which is but the third part of a dram would sink to the bottom But of all mettals it is worst to stick to Silver bad to lead very hardly to Iron and somewhat difficult to stick to Brasse Melted lead in some respects is like to this Silver colour'd liquid substance For all things will swim on the top thereof Iron flints Potsheards and many other things that will not melt in the fire and will naturally run for since nothing is more hot than melted Lead Gold Silver Tin will swim on the top thereof but they presently melt and run like wax Also it is like Quicksilver for this that being powred forth on a plain table and the drops of it sprinkled here and there it doth not make it moyst and slippery nor doth it stick to the Tables but with increadible swiftnesse and unstable motion it comes together again and the drops run upon heaps with themselves because they are of a condensed matter compact and solid and continued and so condensed that it will admit of no Ayre Whence it hapneth that not onely by reason of its weight it descends to the bottom but because it contains no aereal substance in it So Agallocha or Lignum Aloes Lignum Aloes though light sinks to the bottom of the water though it be light and of no weight almost sinks down to the bottom if you put it into water because it is compacted and there are no pores in it CHAP. XXXVI How when we want Salt may flesh and other meats be preserved from corruption By the way Of the wonderfull force of Salt and Vineger Lignum Aloes though light sinks to the bottom of the water What kind of Salt is the best NO man but knows the great use and necessity we have of Salt For besides that that Salt makes all meats savoury and most pleasant to our tast and Pallats and procures an appetite to our meat it preserves all things from corruption especially that which is boyld till all the muddy dreggs be taken from it for it will shine of a bright colour and all things may be safely seasoned therewith and kept all the Summer for it will drink up and consume all excrementitious humours and thickneth and condenseth all flesh and fish that the ambient aire cannot make them putrify Salt makes fruitfull Yet all men must needs wonder that Salt should cause fruitfullnesse and cure barrennes and that some fields have been made fruitfull by Salt strewed upon them which experience hath proved to be true For far women that are commonly barren become fruitfull and fit to conceive by eating Salt moderately with their meats for it wipes away all foule moysture and dries the overwet matrix and causeth the genitall seed to stick more easily to the womb that is not so slippery as before But to dry women whose matrix is scorched like to ground that is thirsty moystning things must be given for Salt and sharp things are naught for them Also the Low-Countries shew that it will provoke the reines and cause erection who using Salt meats much are exceeding salacious So the frequent eating of Sea fish and all shell fish as Oysters Crabs Lobsters Cockels Periwinkles make people lustfull and are of a hot biting nature For which cause the Aegptians Sin sympos as Plutarch says abstained from Salt and all Salt meats because they were perswaded that Salt caused venery Wherefore they though fit rather to eate unsavoury meats than to use the most savoury sawce but I think they were too superstitious in observing that nor did they sufficiently take care of their health for Salt drives away corruption from mans body and consumes all strange and accidentall humours Add to this that it hath an imbred force for generation of Children whereby the conjugall covenant is confirmed For the moderate use of it raiseth the vigour of the mind and not only for embracing and kissing but for all actions we take in hand it will make us more cheerfull and ready But that it helps fruitfullnesse it is proved because a wonderfull number of Rats and Mice are bred in Ships at Sea and that women that deal in Salt are alwaies itching and have many Children who are commonly helped by Sea-men and Fisher-men that come into the Havens Salt makes field and Mares fruitfull and these are lusty fellows to do their businesse For this reason in some Countries Husbandmen use to strew some Salt amongst the Mares Fodder that they may eat their meat the more greedily and endure their Labour and be more ready and fit to bring Colts Also it makes grounds fruitfull where they are too moist and wet But if Towns and Forts besieged straightly should stand in need of this they must make Salt of Sea-water Salt-water which you shall find then to be effectuall when the Salt liquor will bear an Egg or Ambergreece Next to this to preserve meats is Vineger but it will not last so long for unlesse after some months you poure off the former and poure on fresh Vineger on the season'd meats The force of Vineger they will be mouldy and finnoed But what force and faculty it hath as by many things so also it may be tried by this that an egge steeped three dayes in Vinegar that is very sharp or a little more the shell will grow so tender that you may draw it through a ring like a thin membrane Vineger consumes an egge and dissolves a Whet-stone Also a Whet-stone or a Flint steeped 7 dayes in Vinegar may be crumbled with your finger into powder Hence when Hanniball was to passe the Alps to go into Italy He made the Rocks dissolve with boyling Vineger with the losse of one of his eyes For so great and penetrating is the force of Vineger that it will eate and break stones I oâ—ce made experience of it in a Jewel and a Pearl but it was not so pretious as that of Cleopatra Queen of Aegypt Pearls will dissolve in Vineger which she steeped in Vineger and dissolved and drank it up for the sharpnesse of the Vineger will consume Pearls By the same reason it resists Venomes and drives away the Contagion of Pestilent diseases Therefore me-thinks they do well who when any publick disease is spread in a Country do moderately use Vineger For this will disperse and scatter the faulty Ayre and if you eate any of it will keep the humours from infection and corruption So those that suck out venome with their mouths and any stinking wounds do wash their mouths with sharp Vineger But great care must be taken that we do not use Vineger too much and immoderately for it dryes the brain and hinders sleep wherefore I Counsell you to mingle some Rose-water with it and a little Rhenish-wine and Saffron a smal quantity For so it will do the head lesse hurt Of the same nature almost and of the same efficiency are all very sowr and sharp things
Jaws fumes rise from these and infect the spittle with a contrary quality Whence it is that sometimes we perceive a salt sowre sweet Sweat and spittle have their forces from the humours or sharp taste in our spittle as there is in sweat also Hence it is that when men are fasting their breath stinks exceedingly and the unsavourinesse of the breath offends all near us that talk with us For some foggy ill smells evaporate and boyl forth of the body as out of some muddy lake and these being of a venemous nature infect the fountains of spittle And this moysture that swims in the mouth and moystneth the tongue and waters our meat is nothing else What spittle is than a flegmatique excrement that ariseth from the stomach from the nutrimental juice received in and flees to the brain and so is sent down to the tongue and Jaws Hence it is that those whose stomachs abound with flegme are alwaies full of spittle in their mouths and is overwet with immoderate moisture but such as are hot about the entrals and dry with a feavorous heat their tongues are not wet at all Who have a dry or moist mouth but crack as the earth doth when it is over-dried and parched by the heat of the Sun Since therefore the qualities and effects of Spittle come from the humours for out of them is it drawn by the faculty of nature as fire draws distilled water from hearbs the reason may be easily understood A simile from distilled hearbs why spittle should do such strange things and destroy some creatures And if the spittle of a sound man be effectuall for many uses that it will not onely destroy many creatures but kills Quicksilver also and fixeth it what shall we think of such that are sick of the Leprosy the Pox and many other contagious diseases I know many that have catcht the small Pox and measils by onely putting their mouths to the cups whereon the spittle of those that were infected did stick by reason of the clamminesse of it and venemous mud that fastneth to the teeth so that for the same cause the bitings of all creatures are dangerous by reason of the contagiousnesse of their spittle except the nerves and muscles be not hurt by it CHAP. XLV Of the use of Milk Beestings Creame The dutch call the first Beest the latter Room also what will keep these from cloddering in the Stomach Milk Who it is good for THe use of Milk is not alike wholsome for all people for those that have cold Stomachs it grows soure in them and fills the body with wind and those that are very hot of temper in them it burns and sends forth stinking vapours and offends the Head And since the nature of Milk is so that it will thicken and be condensed by heat Milk is thickned by heat and melts by cold and melted by cold it follows that it is soonest clottered in a hot Stomach and nothing will hinder this more than Honey and Sugar adding a little Salt to it But since I have known many strangled by clottered Milk coagulated in their Stomachs their breath being stopped when they began to vomit I think some wanton young men and lascivious suiters do very ill who at their afternoon meetings use to stuff themselves with Creame and Biestings and other Milk-meats and drink Wine abundantly with them to the great detriment of their health For Wine makes Milk curdle Wine and milk mingled are naught and become like to Cheese wherewith the Stomach being offended and is not able to concoct it all turnes to corruption and these are the foundations and seminaries of great diseases Milk corrupts Fish So fish and Milk and all soure things mingled with Milk and drenched with Wine cause Scabs and the Leprosy For all things cramb'd in thus promiscuously corrupt and are made subject to putrefaction Those gluttons that when a Cow hath new Calved love Beestings Beestings shall find nothing more hurtfull to man so that Children that within three dayes after they are born do suck their Mothers Milk are very ill by it and onely escape Death For it coagulates and clotters in their bodies and stops the Channells of the blood and the Veins so that nutriments cannot passe fitly and without hurt But these things dissolve Milk and Clottered blood also Cummin-seed Oyxmel and Vineger of Squils Angelica Master-wort CHAP. XLVI Why Gouty people are Lascivious and Prone to venery and as many as lye on their backs and on hard beds Gowty people are very lascivious SUch as have the Joynt-Gout are most commonly Lascivious and lust exceedingly partly because they have been used to it by long custome by the immoderate use whereof they came to have that disease partly because their Nerves are grown stiff and stretched out by it and by lying often on their backs the humours flow to the generative parts They also that ride much or lye along on Ship-boards and lye hard on their backs are very Prone and given much to Venery For the Nerves destinated for mans generation that run to the genitall parts grow hot so that by the agitation and influence of humours the loines are provoked and there is erection made thereby By the same reason if any man hurt or bruise his great Toe of his foot immediately from this effect the groin and cods swell that is that wrinkled cover of the Testicles is in pain by it arising from consent and by reason of the interweaving of Nervs and Veins As if any man puts into a fire that is very hot a pair of Tongues or other iron A simile from Smiths not only the part put into the fire will be red hot but also that part which is farr from the fire grows so hot that it cannot be handled so pain is communicated to the parts that are on the same side and the sickly affect is conveighed to the neighbouring part So from the Stomach Intestins Matrix Spleen Liver the head is affected and when the brain is hurt or troubled with any distemper the mischiefe is derived from thence to the parts that are under it And therefore Mid-wives though they know not the cause of it The generative parts are signs of good health or sicknesse use to search and see the Testicles of Children when they are sick and their privy member by the observation whereof they can judge young men also may perceive certain signes of recovery of death of health or sicknesse For if the cases of the Testicles be loose and feeble and the Cods fall down it is a signe that the naturall faculties are fallen The Testicles hanging down or close up what signs they are and the vitall Spirits that are the props of Life But if these secret parts be wrinkled and raised up and the yard stands stiffe it is a signe all will be well But that the event may exactly answer the praediction we
I think we should not wholly neglect the mingling of wine with water that of Plutarch was ever my delight I had rather drink wine moderately in its time Plutarch his opinion of mingling wine with water than to mingle it with water for it is spoil'd by putting water to it If any one would keep Chestnuts from corrupting let him mingle Walnuts with them for they will drink up all filthy excrementicious moisture from them How to keep Chest-nuts that makes them rotten and will not let them corrupt For the nature of the Walnut is drying and drinks up moisture wherefore it is good for the Tonsils and all diseases of the throat for which use there is a confection made called Diacarion that is made of Walnuts Dianucum that stops all defluxions from the head and because they resist poyson and discusse all contagions of the Ayre the composition Diatessaron that is made of four Ingredients was invented by the Antients An Antidote against the Plague which hath in it two Nuts as many Figs twenty leaves of Rue and some grains of Salt if any one eat these bruised together fasting he shall be that day free from venomes and contagious diseases Onions differ from other plants by nature Onions contrary to the nature of all other Plants increase when the Moon decreaseth and decrease when the Moon increaseth The reason is because the Moon choaks it with too much moysture For it being by nature full of juyce as all Bulbate plants are the Moon increasing augments the humour of it but it abates the heat which is the principal cause that plants increase For the same cause such as are over fat are barren Fat women are barren and produce no children because they want heat which makes the seminal excrement fruitfull And this is the cause that Onions Aloes Venus navel Saffron roots Squils Leeks and many more that are full of natural moisture if they be hanged up in the larder to the roof of the place they will sprowt forth and grow For being full of juice they want nothing but heat to make them shoot out Those that are hungry when a Feaver comes Feavers that make men hungry use to last long and therefore I alwaies held it better that the feavourish Patient should be thirsty than hungry For since their Feaver proceeds from yellow choler good store of drink powred on and sweat being dried up those Feavers will abate with ease but those that are greedy after meat in a Feaver are sick of a melancholique humour and of a sharp Salt flegme that kindles the Feaver and the stomach being full of those humours they will desire meat exceedingly whence it is that such as are so affected do feed their disease and give it fuel whereby they must longer be afflicted by it De plenit But there are three kinds of flegme sweet sowre salt and the first makes one sleepy the second hungry the third thirsty That onely makes the disease long that makes a man hungry wherefore if you would have the disease sooner end give them little meat at the beginning How to keep wine from sowring Wines in Summer as we see will grow sowre by reason of the heat of the Ayre Wherefore they must be set in cold Cellars and places underground and be well stopped But if you want that convenience put into the vessel a pound and half of Lard and Hogs-flesh salted or as the vessel is great a greater quantity wrapped in linnen so hanged that as the Wine is drawn forth you may let it sink still untill you come to the bottom that all the wine be drawn forth and the wine will neither dead nor sowre For all that would make the wine faulty goes to the Hogs flesh But the mouth of the vessel must be very close stopped that no Ayre may enter and a bag filled with Salt or sand must be laid on the top of it so will it neither grow sowre nor corrupt But that wine may grow sowre like Vineger you may do it with Leek-seeds or by casting in some tendrels and leaves of the Vine To restore clammy wine Corrupt clammy wine is restored with Cows milk moderately salted Some attempt to do it with Brimstone Quick-lime and Allum but that they may do men no hurt I could wish they would add Orris root and Juniper-berries to them That wine may please the pallat and be well liked for taste and smell put an Orange or Pom-citron stuck with cloves into the vessel that it may touch the wine and swim in it for it would rot by being wet it will contract no dead or musty taste but will have an excellent rellish Rue is an Antidote to poyson Since Hearb-grace is fit for many diseases and hath many excellent properties yet this shews the wonderfull force of it because a Weesil by biting Rue beforehand will destroy a Basilisk that is a most venemous serpent whence we may easily guesse what force it hath against venome and contagious diseases The Physitians in Italy do beg of the Governours that they may have such men as are condemned for wicked actions How the Italians dissect an Anatomy to dissect their bodies that such as are studious in Physick may be exercised in Anatomy Wherefore that no humours may be dissipated or their grosser spirits vanish Thefoe reof Opium and that all things may appear plainly they kill such as deserve to dye with Opium that is the juyce of black Poppy to the quantity of two or three drams given in the strongest wine when they have drank this potion they first begin to be merry and have as it were a Sardinian laughter then they fall fast asleep and die for it so suddenly runs into the veins and vitall parts that their bodies that died of Opium being dissected it is found to stick to the heart If Wine or Ale set in the Sun and wind are long before they grow sowre That Wine or other drink may soon sowre Salt pounded and mingled with Pepper and sowre leaven will soon do it But if you would have it done sooner yet cast a piece of Steel or a brick made red hot again and again into the vessel or infuse radish roots in it and they will soon sowre Also Medlars and Cornels unripe Mulberries or Blackberries Sloes cut in pieces Actian Cherries that look black without Morellen Cherries and are red within as bloud will make any liquor sowre and exceeding red also the flowre of Meadow Wind-flowre will do as much and the berries of both Elders and the most beautifull flowre of Clove-gilliflowers For that field poppy that commonly grows amongst Wheat Wild Poppy is hurtfull colours drinks of a very red Scarlet colour but the use of it is hurtfull and dangerous so that their errour is to be abandoned that in the Quinsey or pain of the side do give either the decoction or infusion or distilled liquor
he had given occasion to the Enemies of God to blaspheme and not onely to insult over Gods people but to revile and speak hardly of God himself But to passe to the other part of the Argument It falls out sometimes that children for the Parents faults undergo some marks and notes of Infamy and Ignominy and some disgrace comes unto them thereby For example if the Mother commit adultery When children are forced to carry their Parents faults if she be a drunken sot or noted for any notorious crime part of this disgrace is derived to her children So if any one be born by incest or unlawfull copulation or by natural conjunction but before marriage whence by custome such children are called natural the people will commonly scoff at such children What children are natural and deride them as the nature of mortal men is to be rash petulant reproachfull Mans reproachfulnesse and injurious but this reproach proceeds commonly from men of depraved manners and affections since the children are in no fault For the writers of the Gospel were not ashamed in setting down our Saviours Genealogy to reckon up many that were not lawfully begotten in the state of Matrimony Homil. 3. in Math. which Chrysostome thinks was done purposely and so do many more that no man might grow proud by the dignity of his progenitours nor be dejected if he were born of mean Parents or that were not famous for their vertues so they themselves endeavour and contend to do what is worthy to be commended For every man is ennobled by his own worth and not by that nobility he derived from his Predecessours by his birth Let no man be proud of the nobility of his Parents And as an idle worthlesse man is not made glorious by his Parents vertues or glorious country he was born in so a noble minded man is not to be dishonoured for his Parents faults For race and birth are not our works Nor ours can be said Metamor L. 13. To which purpose speaks the Satyrist Juvenal Satyr 8. If thou be noble as Achilles stout What is true nobility Born from Thersites base I had rather Than thou should'st like Thersites prove a lowt And boast that Achilles was thy Father All which shews that true nobility and honour are not to be so much measured by the stock and noble descent men come from as by their own vertue integrity of life and sincerity of manners And Lastly that men of good parts are not to be despised though they be of mean place or Parentage if they aim and endeavour themselves to perform noble actions Which is shewed in that whole narration of Ezechiel where this matter is fully amplified and the rash Judgements of men and their inconsiderate and reproachfull speeches against God are strongly convinced and reprehended CHAP. II. Wherefore when men grow well after a disease do their genitall parts swell and they naturally desire copulation and of this matter here is a safe admonition and wholesome counselset down WHen people that were sick recover of their diseases they do not presently grow well and regain the strength they had but they are restored by good diet and wholesome nutriment for though the disease be shaken off and the Feavourish heat extinguished yet there remain in the body still some prints and impressions of the health dejected and cast down so that by reason of feeblenesse no part almost can well perform its office when we should use them Venery ill for such as are newly recovered onely the genital parts ordained for procreation of children recover first and get strength to do their businesse and are very prone thereunto and lusty yet it is very pernicious to use venerious actions in this case But these are certain and undoubted arguments that health is restored and that no reliques of the disease stay in the body when the genital parts swell and stand stiff though all the other parts are weak and feeble and can do nothing in conjugal matters nor can endure â—he labour of it I think the reason is because the obstructions of the veins are taken away and the passages are opened and the Liver and Reins Why such as recover are prone to venery and other parts destinated to distribute the nutriment do first enjoy the benefit of the nourishment from meats and therefore are restored before the rest whence it follows that they grow strong and are abundantly filled with natural and vitall spirits by the motion and agitation whereof the obscene and secret parts swell and are frothy and lustfull when the remotest parts as the feet arms shoulders ankles hips thighs neck cheeks are later watred with alimental and vitall juice When therefore the secrets by the office of the Liver are filled and fatted with exquisite and wholesome nutriment they first of all recover and get strength that upon the least lustfull thought the Cods swell and shew what force they have Signs of health in boyes Also young Boys shew some tokens of this for though those parts be weak in them and want the faculty of generation yet the spirits stretch them out and cause erection and they grow stiff by their lying on their backs wich is a sign they are well and in good health So though men newly recovered be weak and feeble and being wasted with the disease Erection of the genitals sign of health their body is lean and starved yet that secret part which Tully calls Mentula first gives signs of health restored For in regard of nearnesse the nutriments are first carried thither and because that partâ— is joyned to the principal parts and produced from one stock of veins nerves and arteries Venery hurtful for men that are sickly If then those that are freed of their disease and upon growing to be well fall to venery before it is fit and the strength of their bodies will allow the vitall spirit and purer juice being exhausted they are mortally afflicted and all grows worse and worse with them For the more sincere and pure part of the nutriment and the dewy humour wherewith the dry and decayed parts are wet and moistned is drank up and cast forth like to Cream whence it falls out that the forces that began a little to increase fall again and are cast down But as for women the reason is otherwise for they are not so much wearied by copulation as men are but rather they get strength by it so that some who are extream letcherous sometimes fain themselves sick for this very cause that they may allure their husbands to embrace them and to lye with them Lascivious women Hence the Low-Dutch have a Proverb The Wife that is sick would alwaies have something Whereby they mean that when their wives are sick it is not alwaies for sweet wines and delicate meats but for something else that men can better please them with then by presenting them
the City of Zirizea abounds exceedingly well with all things which are usefull and commodious for mans life and no lesse than when it was famous for negotiations with strangers and frequented with goers and commers of all sides For the concourse and merchandise of forraigners and celebrity of a place may sometimes be lost suddenly either by the rising of some war from without or seditions at home or popular tumults for presently all strangers withdraw themselves and take care for their own safety But that negotiation that is performed amongst the Citizens and Inhabitants shutting out all usury and traffique in a compendious way made with strangers or the Inhabitants and is a liberal gain is stable firm solid and not so much subject to envy But if calamity come from some other place then the Citizens and natives Mediocrity of felicity is commendable stand firm and undaunted and do not easily forsake their Country their Churches their houses wives and dear children nor do they go away yeild what they have to strangers to enjoy Yet the men of Zirizea All things are governed by divine providence in so great mutation of humane things and change from one to another which is all wrought by Gods providence seem wisely to have consulted for their own profit and to have exchanged uncertain things for certain For their people being most skilfull Marriners when their trading at Sea did not succeed very well in forraign commodities they altered their course of Trade and began to fall to fishing which is a very great gain and hurts no body and here they fear no shipwrack nor losse of traffique no disgrace for usury or increase upon money and the rest of the Citizens follow saving wayes of gain such as are honest and envied by none out of those things that the earth yeilds abundantly for mans use wherewith they recreate themselves liberally besides a laudable education they provide a very large patrimony for their children and leave them an inheritance to preserve their Parents names by But that strangers may understand in what part of the earth and under what climate the City Zirizea is and under what elevation of the Pole I took the height of the Pole-artick or North-Pole above Zirizea's Horizon and I found the elevation to be 51. degrees 47. Minutes and that was the altitude of that verticall point the longitude is 25. degrees whence it comes that since the Sun is not far from them and departs not very far from the Island but doth moderately shine upon them in the two Equinoctials and two Solstices the Inhabitants by the benefit of the Sun have no dull and stupid wits but they are witty civill merry yet many of them by the reason of the Sea that hath its influence upon them will speak very scurrilous crabbed and brinish language sometimes of which subject I lately held a pleasant discourse with Job Nicolais a discreet man and industrious who carefully labours for the publick good and doth what he can to promote it and desireth that the Citizens should be men of sound and good manners and if they have contracted any fault by the Salt vapours of the Sea that are so near to them that it might be mended with good education CHAP. III. How comes it that such as are old men or far in years do beget children not so strong and oft times such as are froward and of a sad and sowre Countenance and such as are seldome merry THey that marry when their age declines and their youthly heat is abated for the most part beget sorrowfull children and such as are froward sad not amiable silent and of a sowre and frowning countenance Youth is full of juyce because they are not so hot in the act of venery or so lusty as young people that are full of juice For the heat of our age is fittest for to act this Comedy Old men being feeble their spirits small and their body dry and exhausted of bloody humours the natural faculties are weak and that force that comes from them to beget a child is uneffectuall and invalid having very small ability so that they cannot perform the marriage duty so manfully and there wants many things in those they do beget Which is intimated in that dispute that the Angel is said to have had with Esdras Esdras 4. Ask saith he thy Mother and she will tell thee why those she bears now are not like those she bore before thee but are lesse in stature and she will say unto thee that the rest were conceived and born when she was young but these when the Womb decayed hence it is that such as are born in old age are slender small weak Why some are not so strong feeble not tall and have not so much strength because natures forces are decayed with age and the natural and vitall spirits are diminished Why some are dejected in mind whence also the mind is more dejected is not so nimble lively merry and jocant because these have obtain'd all things sparingly and not so largely unlesse perhaps their Parents were pleasing and merry and moderately heated with wine when they were begot For sometimes old people wil shew themselves young and lascivious together to be so wel pleased that in the spring they wil one embrace the other A Proverb from Horses that are worn out For that time of the year serves for Horses also that are decaid and worn out as the Proverb saith for to make them neigh whereby the Hollanders mean that there are none so old but at that pleasant time of the year when nature puts forth all her forces but they will shew some tokens of a mind raised also whereby it falls out that if a woman thus chance to conceive when they are merry The affects of Parents go to the Children after nine months she will bring forth a mild beautifull pleasant flourishing lively generous active Child And if their Parents in their young years were of a clowdy and impleasing disposition as many froward people be when they get their Children all falls to the worst all those affections and tumults that use to arise amongst married people and all their distempers will be derived to their Children so that neither the conception nor time the woman goes with Child nor her delivery not nutrition can be performed decently and according to Natures order and the Children contract many ertours and faults of bodies and mindes from the disturbed motions of their minds of all which the fault is to be imputed to the parents who were the cause and seed plot of all these imperfections of nature The faults of Children to be imputed to the Parents Wherefore such as would take the best care for their Childrens good and would have them tractable and pleasant and sweet of behaviour must take especiall care for this that in matrimoniall embracements all things may be moderately performed that nothing happen
thin and die The Vine loves the Olive But the Vine loves to grow near the Olive and will be content to have it engrafted into it desiring to joyn with it The Oak hates the Olive But the Oak and Olive Tree are at very great ods and hate one the other so much that if one touch the boughs of the other they will grow crooked and turn to the contrary way The Baytree an enemy to the Vine So the Vine endures not to grow near to the Baytree because this is shady and by its heat hinders the growing of it So is it affected to Coleworts Cabbige hates the Vine that suck up the juice of the earth and the Vine wanting that dries and withers for both these plants cover after moysture So some plants are delighted with the affinity and nearnesse of some other Plants and are refreshed by the mutual embracements of their boughs and tender stalks others are averse and withdraw themselves and will by no means unite Pitch is taken out with Oyl So some things that are rosiny and of a fat substance agree well hence it is that Pitch is washed out with Oyl if the Garments be Silk or Velvet or Fluwel or Skarlet Purple or Chamlet Butter and Oyl take out dirt or the most precious dyes that are stayned by it For all these kinds of stains and filth are taken off and made clean with butter or Oyl so handsomely that it cannot be perceived So soap wherewith linnen is wash't is made of Oyl How Soap is made fat Soot rant Butter and the ashes of the Pitch-Tree And as there is so great Concord between so many kinds of Plants that they will embrace one the other so amongst hearbs of the same species there is observed to be a difference of the Sex Sever in plants For there is a conjunction between them and a kind of matrimonial society so that these plants growing one near the other will grow the more beautifull and both their leaves and fruit will be more gracefull and they will decay and grow lesse and sometimes dy when they are taken asunder And hence it is that some plants are called the Male What plant is the Male and which the Female others the Female the Females are those that have lesse force and vertue and are full of a cold and unfruitfull moysture Whence it comes that they will bear flowers in their season but for want of heat and by reason of their debility they bear no fruit Berries Kernels or seed Wherefore they that after their flowers are fallen yeild no such thing Plants bearing no fruit but some empty and vain rudiment of fruit which for want of heat and impotency of nature they cannot bring to perfection are called Female Plants But those are called Males that are more beautifull and comely and bear great leaves and boughs full of them and grow up very gallantly and bring their fruit and seed to maturity whereby they may be propagated and grow again which thing is denied to the other sex unlesse perhaps by the nearnesse of the Male and gentle embracements it grow fruitfull and being wedded with it swels forth into seed and fruit In plants there is a venereal affection L. 3. c. 4. The natural force of the Palm Tree which Pliny saith is done in the Palm Tree For the Female by the vapour and influence of the Male conceives and brings forth fruit the Female bowing down her top and branches towards the Male and fawning on it and when the Male is cut down she grows barren therefore the Arabians say that the Females will not bear without the Males the flowers and down of them and sometimes the powder and dust being strewed upon the Females For the like happens to these plants A simile from Hens and Females that want the Male. as doth to hens that will lay Egs without the Cock but these Egs will never bring any Chicken though the Hens sit on them never so long The reason is not unlike in women in whose capacities of the Matrix Women will bring forth Lumps without form by a mixture of seed and bloud flowing thither sometimes lumps are heaped together without any mans cooperation but because mans help was wanting and the efficient cause that affords life and form and vertue was not used all that masse and heap is without form and life Wherefore plants that have a vegetative faculty no lesse than animals that are bred of a moist and slippery seed do send a generative force and vital spirit one into the other and enjoy a mutual copulation and that by a secret consent of nature and a hidden inspiration that they have from the heat of the Ayre and the Sun and the generative spirit of the world The spirit of the world makes all things fruitfull whereby plants do flourish are fostered do bud are quickened and enlivened and conceive and bring forth seed and fruit which vertue is infused into the world and all the parts of it whereby all things are continued and subsist in a constant order L. 3. c. 9. Wherefore Theophrastus and other searchers into the natures of plants have wisely divided them into Males and Females by the reason that some are fruitfull and bear seed but others are barren and bring forth none So Piony called the Male the crooked bladders and husks opening by degrees Piony seed very comely to look on is very beautifull here with black shining seeds there with red and Scarlet colour'd and it refresheth the eyes with a present efficacy in curing the Epilepsie the Female wants this comelinesse So the Female Mandragora is either barren or bears very small fruit But the Male bears a lovely pleasant and sweet sented Apple Cantic 7. like to the yelk of a Hens Egg by the enticement whereof Rachel being allured Gen. 30. suffered Leah to lie with the Patriarch Jacob whereby as some Ecclesiastical writers suppose she might be made fruitful Augustine on Genesis But I can see no natural reason for it nor is it likely that Mandragora should cure barrennesse since it cools extreamly unlesse it chance to be good for a hot fiery and torrefied Matrix Whether Mandrugora cause conception which being unfit to conceive as is also the Matrix that is exceeding moist as Hippocrates saith may be helped by and brought to its due temper or else because it is of a sleepy quality it may help the retentive faculty of the womb to hold the seed We observe the same distinction of sex in the Bay-tree Corneil-tree Olive blew Violet Oak and many more whereof such as are called the Males are fruitfull with flowers fruit and seed but the Females are barren and bear nothing Also amongst wild plants and Garden plants that are cultivated by mans industry we alwaies see such a difference yet so as that the wild plants which come up of themselves
upper parts which by their pleasing vapours may recreate the spirits decayed But if these things be used otherwise and preposterously it falls out that the disease is exasperated and women are grievously affected if they do not copulate with men so that besides the great pains they endure they faint and swound away CHAP. XIII Of the nature condition and manners of women and why that sex being angry is more violent than men are and will scold more outragiously and is overborn by many other affections and passions and by the way what is the meaning of that saying of the wise Hebrew The iniquity of a man is better than a woman that doth well THe wickednesse of some women is the cause that not onely Stage-Players Eccle. 25. and Poets Orators and Philosophers who knew not the true Religion but also Wise men Jews and Prophets who had abundance of the knowledge of God do in many places speak against and condemn women Women are spoken against by all Writers and that deservedly though they are not all of them of the same strain nor are they alike bitter and unsavoury For there are some Matrons who by the benefit of education are so adorned with many great virtues that they are not short of the best men nor are they inferiour unto them Esdr 3. c. 4. though the promiscuous multitude and the multiplicity of women be shamelesse foolish fierce and imperious even toward Kings slippery various mutable and as for lust of the flesh and pleasure they are insatiable and can never have enough though they be tired out with it yet some of these are more prone and addicted to these affections But since so many vices of this sex are wont to be observed every where and many that are marryed complain of the nature and condition of their Wives and make their pitifull relations unto others of the indignities they suffer by them which gives occasion to some to abhor this kind of life The inconveniences of Marriage and they rather withdraw themselves from the intimate company and society of women which others are forced to endure being tedious irksome querulous bitter fierce and must bear their threatnings and imperious behaviour Why God ordain'd Marriage But since the order of nature and necessity of living and the love a man hath and propension to propagate his like to succeed him that he may provide for posterity that he may procure a companion and fellow-helper they do wisely that marry that they may plesantly and with delight passe over this transitory life in an undivided society and mutual consent of souls and bodies For the condition of mans life requires it unlesse nature be clean against it and the constitution and state of the body cannot away with it Gel. l. 1. c. 6. To this belongs the speech of Metellus of Numidia which the Romans commended Metellus his speech of Marrying a Wife wherewith he exhorted the Citizens lest the Commonwealth should decay that every man should presently take him a Wife For saith he if we could lead our lives without a Wife all men would willingly desire to be freed of that trouble and inconvenience but since Nature hath so ordained it that we cannot live so happily with them nor can we live by any means without them we must take care for the perpetual safety whereby the Common-wealth may subsist than for our own short-during pleasure And if the office of a woman in houshold affairs affords great use and profit for such as are well and strong truly the use of a woman is very necessary and more requisite for such as are sick For as the Wise man saith Eccle. 36. Where there is no hedge the possession is taken away and where there is no woman the sick man laments who wants the help of another and must be supported by the Office of one to attend him A faithfull Wife will be very diligent to take care for him and for her family and her whole thoughts are fastned upon her husband so that if he sustain any inconvenience if any calamity fall upon him if he be sick or sad Profits of Matrimony she will desire to take the greatest part of the calamity upon her selfe for she grieves no less for her losses or crosses than she doth for her own Gen. 2. which proceeds from the mutuall consent and agreement of their souls and bodies whereby of two they come to be as it were but one body Horace writes knowingly of it Lib. Carm. 2. Ode 13. Thrice happy they and more Who being wedded hold Whose love ne're ends before Death nor do brawl and scold Womans anger like a tempest But daily examples testify that women are subject to all passions and perturbations and that they will be cruelly angry and mad when there is little or no cause for it and that the distemper and rage of a woman is no lesse than is the distemper of the Ayre and the Clowds when they are exasperated with Thunder and Lightning which besides others that were desirous of wisdome the Hebrews found true by their daily use and course of life as we find it abundantly set down in their writings For I think that by their daily familiarity and conversation in the house with them they had found and learned what a wicked and malitious woman will do if at any time she be angry or provoked what Tragedies she will cause and how violently she will rage and storme For so one of them amongst the rest continues his speech Lecles 25. A Woman what living Creature she is taking a similitude from venemous and pernicious beasts Give me any Plague but the Plague of the heart and any wickednesse but the wickednesse of a woman there is no head above the head of a Serpent no anger exceeds the anger of a woman I had rather dwell with a Lyon and a dragon than to keep house with a wicked woman But since a woman came forth and was made out of man a pleasing gentle tame meek tender smooth beardlesse soft skinned creature and that desires to be handled by man and to be subject to him Whence Women become so frail one would wonder whence it is that she is become so cruel and alwaies scolding and brawling and is so unbridled in her affections But I conjecture that all this proceeds from weaknesse of mind and lack of judgement in women whence it happens that a woman enraged is besides her selfe and hath not power over her selfe so that she cannot rule her passions or bridle her disturbed affections or stand against them with force of reason and judgement like to Children and such as are weak and feeble for age that want reason and discretion Delights to play with fellows Horat in Art Poctic and t is strange Angry soon pleased still consists in change For a womans mind is not so strong as a mans nor is she so full of
understanding and reason and judgement and upon every small occasion she casts off the bridle of reason Why a woman grows angry suddenly and like a mad dogg forgetting all decency and her selfe without choice she sets uppon all be they known or unknown If any man desires a naturall reason for it I answer him thus that a womans flesh is loose soft and tender so that the choler being kindled presently spreads all the body over and causeth a sudden boyling of the blood about the heart A simile from things on fire A woman is soon hot soon cold For as fire soonest takes hold of light straw and makes a great flame but it is soon at an end and quiet so a woman is quickly angry and flaming hot and rageth strangely but this rage and crying out is soon abated and grows calm in a body that is not so strong and valiant Why a woman will cry when she is angry What men are more subject to weep and that is more moyst and all her heat and fury is quenched by her shedding of teares as if you should throw water upon fire to put it out Which we see also in some effeminate men whose magnanimity and fiercenesse ends almost as Childrens do in weeping when the adversary doth strongly oppose himselfe against them If any man would more neerely have the cause of this thing explain'd Whence do women become furious and desires a more exact reason I can find no neerer cause that can be imagined than the venim and collection of humours that she every month heaps together and purgeth forth by the course of the Moon For when she chanceth to be anry as she will presently be all that sink of humours being stirred fumeth and runs through the body so that the Heart and Brain are affected with the smoky vapours of it and the Spirits both vitall and animal that serve those parts are inflamed and thence it is that women stirred up especially the younger women for the elder that are past childing are more quiet and calme Old women lesse â—â—gry because their terms are ended will bark and brawle like mad doggs and clap their hands and behave themselves very unseemly in their actions and speeches and reason being but weak in them and their judgement feeble and their mind not well order'd they are sharply enraged and cannot rule their passions And the baser any woman is in that sex the more she scolds and rails and is unplacable in her anger hence the vulgar woman and Whores for Noble women and Gentle women will usually observe a decorum though oft times they will be silent and bend their brows and scarse vouchsafe to give their husbands an answer the Dutch call it Proncken because their Bodies are commonly polluted with faulty humours are full of impudence joyn'd with equall malice as if the Divell drove them and they cannot be perswaded by counsell reason shame flattery admonition that will ordinarily make wild beasts quiet and you cannot hold them from their cruelty or make them forbear their mad and lowd exclamations They see not right nor good nor just Terent. Heaut Scen. 1. Act. 4. What may help or hurt them their lust Doth govern all So forgetting themselves they despise their faith honour chastity fame honesty reputation and hazard all To which may be applyed that enquiry of Solomon concerning mans condition Eccles 7. I applyed my heart to know and to search and to seek out wisdome and the reason of things and to know the wickednesse of folly and of foolishnesse and madnesse and I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets and her hands as bands I have laboured to this hour to find a good and cordiall woman and could find none one man amongst a thousand have I found but a woman amongst all those have I not found A good woman is rare Pro. 36. And that enquiry in the Proverbs is not much different from this Who can find a vertuous or good woman as if he should say you shall not easily in any Country no not in the remotest parts of the earth or any corners of it find an honest and well manner'd woman and if by chance you should light upon her Solomons place explained she may be equal'd with the most precious Jewells and no Merchandise be they never so costly can be compared to her But because I have fall'n upon this argument and have begun to examine the condition of women I shall by the way clear the meaning of those words of Solomon the wisest Eccles 25. The iniquity of a man is better than a woman doing good I interpret that sentence thus That a man The wise Hebrew his sentence interpreted be he never so sluggish idle unskillfull and rude in merchandise will do his businesse better than a headlong and rash woman that undertakes any thing with a vain perswasion of wisdome and inconsiderate confidence and thereupon doth all things more uprightly than a woman doth For a man distrusting himselfe doth by leasure and circumspectly all his actions using other mens help that he calls to counsell with him so that the successe is more happy than when the same things are performed by an arrogant woman that is puffed up with a proud opinion of her own wisdome as they commonly are For such a womans endeavours commonly run to the worst and are unsuccessefull A Dutch Proverb against women why a woman is not so ingenious which the Dutch commonly signifie by this Proverb Het quaeste van Een man is better dan het beste van een vrouwe that is If any thing be done and brought to perfection by a woman it deserves lesse praise than what is but yet rude and imperfect begun by a man namely by reason of a woman's want of mind and counsell her dullnesse and blockishnesse for want of naturall heat and because their languishing mind is soked into great moysture so that the faculties of their souls come forth more slowly and are not so fit for action and to do noble things The Roman Law concerning women Wherefore the Romans who took great care to order and to confirm the Common-wealth would have women as Tully saith Pro Murena to be under Guardians by reason of the infirmity of their natures and to bear no civill office Also St. Paul who with indefatigable labour instructed mens minds in the sound faith St. Pauls precept concerning Women and diligently informs us what is godlinesse commands silence unto women in publick solemnities in the Congregation by reason of the impotency of their minds 1 Cor. 14. and want of moderation in their affections and will not suffer a woman to preach or to aske a question in publick meetings or to be present in voting or to give her opinion concerning it Since therefore so great is the frailty and weaknesse and imperfection of womens nature Platoes
opinion concerning Women that Plato to the disgrace of this sex saith that they have hardly any soul and scarse deserve to be called by the name of man or to be honour'd with it yet St. Paul 1 Cor. 11. who with a fatherly care gives counsell concerning oeconomicall government and peace in Families will have honour given to the woman that belongs to her and that she must not be totally despised or accounted base and vile since she is of allmost the same dignity and condition and partakes of the same guifts with man being taken out of man by the operation of God that made them both Genes 2. Wherefore the man is the Image and Glory of God as the Apostle saith but the Woman is the glory of the Man for the man is not from the Woman but the Woman is from the Man For man was not created for Woman but Woman for Man yet the Man is not witout the Woman Eph. 5. nor the Woman without the Man in the Lord who so orders all things that the woman must be in subjection to the Man For as the Woman is from the Man so the Man by the Woman begetteth Children So that there is a society for help that is seen on both sides Colos 3. and there is required the mutuall succour love and consent of them both Wherefore St. Peter thinks it fit that Women should obey their husbands Pet. 3. and that the men should be gentle and loving to their Wives forbearing them as being the weaker vessells pardoning small faults in them and winking at many things and not repining at them for it is not fit that a man should be too cruell against that sex which is so frail Adultery in woman is an indelible spot Adulterers laugh at adultery with a proverbiall speech or too sharp and bitter so long as a Woman doth her duty and is not tainted in her honesty and chastity which fault when it is known brings a man more indignation than it doth him hurt as Adulterers use to say yet that spot in a woman can never be washt out nor can that wound be healed though Christian charity and matrimoniall love must not be too rigid or implacable since there is reconciliation with God and the divine goodnesse provoked by our wickednesse idolatries and grievous sinns is wont to be pacified by our prayers and repentance when we acknowledge the errours of our lives past when we are sorrowfull for what we have done and disdaine and hate our sinns with a setled purpose of amendment of life Moreover great part of molestation in this sex comes from the tediousnesse of their going with Child and the trouble they have in suckling and breeding up their Children whence women are so froward and no small inconvenience from their Termes stopt which if they run at the set time for them the heat of anger and bitternesse is driven off those smoky vapours being turned from their hearts and brains and the sad vapour being discussed that useth to fly upwards When a woman is more patient But it is best known to them that are marryed I need not enlarge my discourse upon it how calme and mild that man shall find his Wife when the marriage bed is frequently adorned and this ground is manured with often embracings and copulation And although I may seem to have been something tedious and fuller of words than it needs in explaining this Paradox or sentence that is besides the common opinion and vulgar custome of the Wise Hebrew The place of Ecclus explaind that the meaning of it might be searched out That the wickednesse of a man is better than a good woman that is such a one that is afterwards a cause of Infamy and by whose society disgrace may arise The sense is it is better to hold commerce with a wicked man or to deal with him than to have to do with a deceitfull woman For though in shew and at first appearence she may seem to be good and honorable and in outward behaviour discovers no wickednesse or deceit yet afterward you shall find her inconstant false captious fraudulent and full of imposture so that if any man deceive another the fraud and imposture of a man is righteousnesse compared with the wickednesse of a woman The like forms of speech are found frequently in the Scripture So God in Ezechiel aggravates the wickednesse of Jerusalem very much Ezech. 16. saith that she hath justified Sodom and Samaria whereby he condemns her for to be more wicked and that she exceeds those nations in impiety and wicked actions that the Sodomites and Samaritans compared to her The place in Ezechiel explain'd may seem to be just So in the wickednesse of opinions and in asserting any pernicious sect and maintaining it one man may be more dangerous and more impious than another that some Hereticks may be accounted Orthodox and to teach the right saving truth compared with others One man is more wicked than another that establish more absurd impious blasphemous execrable doctrines which is grown to a proverb This man is a godly and holy man in respect of that as much as to say that though they be both Knaves and ungodly yet if you would measure them both by the rule of equity and square of Justice one may be accounted innocent and to be pardoned in respect of the other 's wicked enormities So one man is more superstitious than another and farther from the true religion and piety and worship of God So want of knowing truth doth fools delude Horat. l. 2. Sermon Ignorance of truth begets errors And errour from the right way doth exclude All those that doubt some here do misse some there All such by seeming truths seduced are So errour involvs a man as well as it doth a woman and wickednesse lays hold of them both but the woman is more detestable and execrable for her wickednesse Therefore the wickednesse of a man is better than a woman doing good and as the Dutch proverb runs De deucht van Een vrouwe is Ergher dan Een Mans boosheyt By which proverb they aggravate the malice of that sex that if you should compare vices with vices and examine the frauds impostures fallacies and devices of them both those that are committed by women are farr more pernicious and heavy than such as are acted by men CHAP. XIV Wherefore an Eggat both ends where by at the long and narrower end it will stand like the Pole artick and antartick cannot be brokén between your fingers or both hands closed together although you press it wherfore steeped in sharp Vineger it will grow soft like a tractable and soft membrane lastly why the same Egg steeped in Aquavitae that is in spirits of Wine it will be consumed like iron by Aquafortis An Egge will melt in Vinegar IF you steep an egg in the sharpest Vineger four days or rather
XVIII To what we ought to ascribe amongst such multitudes of men the great dissimilitude of forme and the manifold difference that is between man and man in their faces countenances eyes and other parts so that sometimes Brothers and Sisters are not one like the other AS there is in Nature a wonderful gracious variety so there is the same in the form and shapes of men in their colours contenance eyes lineaments and in their faces there is found an admitable and numberlesse disparity and dissimilitude To What must be ascribed dissimilitude in men Some refer this to the influence of the Starrs but I think to referr it more properly and rationally to the nature of the Seed and the Mothers Imagination For being that the woman in the very conception and all the time she goes with Child The Womans imagination doth many things even for nine months hath divers thoughts in her mind and every moment is drawn this way and that way by thinking on divers things and her eyes being still fixed upon such objects she lights upon it falls out that those things she sees and are fastest rivered in her imagination are communicated to her Child For when the Nature of the woman is carefully intent in framing the Infant and thinks on nothing but a fair and well proportioned Child and all her forces are bent thereunto if any shape or Image be represented to the sight this soon reflects upon the of-spring who participates of it Moreover Mothers so soon as the Child is born do the best they can that the Child may have a decent comely well proportioned body fitly distinguished in all the parts of it The faults of Nature may be amended For Childrens bodies are ductile and pliable as Clay or Wax and may be bended any way Wherefore if the mouth stand awry and is uncomely they forge frame and order it into a decent posture and if the face be frowning and lowring they will make it pleasant and amiable and beautifull they make the eyes very handsome and lovely and of gray eyes or blunket which Infants commonly have by reason of moysture they make them black by abundantly feeding them with milk and chiefly if the Nurse be of a hot temper and the Child be kept in a dark place For a light Chamber where the Sun shines in much or a great fire hurts the render eyes But squint rolling gogle eyes and such as turn the wrong way That the balls of the eyes may grow black are reduced to their right posture by bending the sight the contrary way for the Muscles will be brought to their naturall places by wresting them to the otherside and being turned about will come right they raise and set eaven the nostrills that are crooked and fall down by a gentle way of handling them but they reduce Eagle noses and such as are with beck by pressing them down to a decent figure that the perpendicular of the nose may be stretched forth from the forehead and eybrows unto the hollow part in the upper-lip like a gnomon or right line or style that stands upon Sun Dialls What forme of Nose is comely neither set on bending outward or inward Likewise if the lips be swoln or fat which is usuall with the Aethiopians as also if the nose that is crooked be pressed down they handle these artificially and they often presse them that they may grow lesse and sink down lower by the same way they frame into a comely fashion a chin that sticks out or is drawn in the forehead head cheeks or eybrows that are deformed and decently order by art what is not seemly So if nature limp on any part and is gon off from the best forme and proportion Whence comes deformity of the body as some have wry necks crooked gowty ill favourd legs or bunch backs that makes them ugly all these errours are easily mended in those that are Children and such members as are wrested or disjoynted or out of their places are for right by the care and industry of man So the diligent care of Nurses makes Children grow up handsomely and so are obnoxious to no deformities of their limbs But the negligence of many Mothers and great idlenesse makes Children not onely to grow up unhandsomely and ill favour'dly but they become bunch-backr lame squint eye'd bull-headed and not comely to look on for they are departed from the dignity and excellency that is in man's body Some Nurses are over diligent and too officious who bestow some labour also on the Childrens privy parts that serve them them to make water with and in time shall be usefull for propagation of Children that they may be ripe betimes and not fail of hopes of getting Children and when they come to be marryed they may not be a shamed for ill performing the matrimoniall duty when they observe bitter contentions and quarrels to arise amongst kindred for this very cause that they will threaten to divorce their Sons in Law unlesse they can shew their manhood and please their wives the better yet I use to dislike and discommend this effeminate and lascivious office used by Nurses for young youths by reason of pulling them thus by their yards before their time or that they come to be of age or have mans strength they are prone to venery and so consume those helps and vent out those humours and vitall spirits wherewith afterwards they might be able to procreate lusty and lively Children whereas by unseasonable venery The discommodities of untimly venery they either get no Children or if they beget any they are lither and not so long lived Therefore I think it is good not to let young people marry too soon untill their forces bestrong and confirmed and that they can endure any hardnesse in matrimoniall society which tender years cannot do for they will presently wax faint and effeminate It is then better that the secret parts should swell out of their own accord naturally than that they should be drawn forth by any allurements CHAP. XIX Many kinds of Animals Fishes Birds Insects are bred without Seed as also Pants and many Animals and small Birds by an unusall way without the copulation of Male and Female do conceive DAily examples shew that many things come forth and are propagated by nature of their own accord and withovt any embracings of others or generation onely from filth corruption as Dormice Rats Snails Shell-fish Carterpillers Grass-Worms Wasps Hornets Weevils Froggs Moths Toads Eels Many things breed from corruption In mens bodies Worms though these have seed within them whereby afterwards they propagate abundantly Also many plants grow forth from the muddy moysture of the earth and fatnesse of it no seed being sowed or plants set in the ground before as are Darnel Cockle Nettles wild Olives Weeds and grasse that spring up of themselves Also there are some Crows in the Low-Countries that conceive by their
words in treating of the motions of conscience because this argument be longs to Preachers and professours of Divinity whose duty it is and by vertue of their office they are bound to pacifie and settle mens consciences and to free them from all feares But since these affections do overthrow mans health that proceed from the stings of conscience and the Spirits and humours vitiated do afford nutriments for it it is the Physitians part also to remove these perturbations out of mens minds that those being taken away the body may be in perfect health For it it a laborious and very difficult matter to restore the body that is fallen sick where the conscience is polluted with the spots of sinns where the Organs of the senses and the Spirits vitall and animall are vitiated And it is no lesse troublesome for a Church-man to give comfort to the soul when the body is full of vitious humours for by reason of the narrow consent and union of both parts the vices of the mind fly upon the body and the diseases of the body The sympathy of the Soul and body are carryed to the Soul As we have for example all mad people and such as are melancolique or frantique such as rave or dote or are drunk Apoplectick paralytick forgerfull stupid Lunatick and many more whose sick distempers proceed from the distemper of the brain wherefore we must carefully look to the head which is the seat of the mind and use all meanes to preserve both parts in health CHAP. XXII How many months doth a Woman go with Child and which must be accounted a seasonable birth By the way of the framing of the body of man and in how many dayes or months the Child is made perfect and comes to live In which narration all things are handled more accurately because from hence bitter quarrells arise not onely betwixt marryed people but others also that use unlawfull copulalation SInce there use oft times great contentions and quarrells to arise amongst many people concerning the time that the woman goes with Child and some complain that are jealous of their Wives that they have formerly marryed to keep them company that they have not gone their full time to be delivered so that somtimes they suspect that they have play'd the Whores and that some other men have secretly made use of their bodies I thought it not amisse to write something to this purpose and the rather because Lawyers that end controversies referr the judgment of this matter to Physitians and leave the resolution of it to them to decide So Paul The judgment of inspection is referred to Physitians Digest Tit. 2. Of the state of Man the Counsellour lib. 19 Respons It is now a received truth that a perfect Child may be born in the seventh month by the Authority of the most learned man Hippocrates and therefore we must believe that one born in lawfull matrimony in the 7th month is a lawfull Child Gellius handleth this argument but rather after mens opinions than according to the truth of the businesse or from natural reason who supposeth that there is no certaine time set of bearing Children and that from the Authority of Pliny who saith that a woman went 13 months with Child L. 7. c. 5 A Child at seven months is full of life But as for what concernes the 7th month I know many marryed people in Holland that had Twins who lived to extreame old age their bodies being lusty and their minds quick and lively Wherefore their opinion is foolish and of no moment who think that a Child at seven months is imperfect and not so long lived and that a Child cannot be borne perfect in all parts untill nine months be past So of late there arose a great conflict amongst us A History of a Child born and it was cruell and bloody and a most deadly and desperate fight by reason of a Maid whose chastity was violated that had no ill Name or doubtfull report but she had a weak head and a feeble judgment and these of all others are soonest overcome and do not so valiantly and corragiously resist and stand against either threats of flattering inticements other wise than some fierce clamorous maids use to do who will bite and scratch and compell one that shall assault their chastity to forsake them But in this Tragedy the conflict grew again more violent and bitter because the Father who was reported to have gotten her with Child or to have ravished her denyed the fact which his enemies charged upon him so bitterly that he might be torturd and racked till he should confesse it but he confidently avouched A deniall of a rape charged upon one that he was ready to forswear it upon the Bible he himselfe being wont to be President in judgment and to handle sacred matters that he never so much as entred her or broke the membrane of her Virginity nor penetrated into her body Wherefore he would by no means be taken for the Father of the Child or that it should be accounted his amongst other arguments he alleaged for his innocency this was one that the Child was born in the 7th month and hardly so late for the month was rather then new begun than ended and all the parts of it were perfect except the nails which we observe sometimes to be wanting in a Child born in nine months especially where great bellyed women use salt fish too lavishly or lick salt as that sex is most prone to desire salt and sharp things When a Child wants nails Wherefore he strove to prove it was not a Child of seven months but nine months and that by making that account of the months and by observing the reason of time they must seek for another Father who had formerly lain with her and got her with Child But when the Judges gave Judgment that the Infant should be viewd and searched by the Physitians a Midwife being called some honest women one was a noble woman who was the Mother of 19. Children and who severall times had been delivered at seven months and the seven months not fully ended They all pronounced not examining the cause of the fact nor respecting the Father whether they should reckon this man or some other to be the Father that this was a Child born in seven months that was carried in the Mothers belly 27 weeks and if the Mother could have gon nine months the child's parts and limbs would have been more firme and strong and the structure of the body would be more compact and fast and not so loose For the brest bone that â—yeth as a buckler or fence over the heart the Dutch call it Borstplate and the sword-like gristle that lies over the stomach were higher than naturally they should be and did not lye down plain but crooked and sharp pointed like the brest of young Chickens that are hatched at the beginning of Spring or
especially in the month of March Whence comes the Nails Also this Infant that was a Female wanted her nails upon her fingers and the utmost joynts of her fingers upon which from the musculous or cartilaginous matter of the skin nails that are very smooth do come forth and grow hard there appeared hardly any marks or prints of nails and they were not so hard as horn but soft as thin skin But on the joynts of their feet there were not resemblance of nails because those parts are not so hot as the hands and are farther from the heart the Fountain of heat for the joynts of the hands that are fastned to the brest by the Armes by the benefit of the heat that is diffused from the heart have more apparent signes on the fingers than any other parts The judgement of Physitians concerning Child birth with no favour or disfavour unto any Wherefore the Physitians observing many naturall causes and depending on solid reasons with favour or disfavour to neither side but as the matter would beare it if he would be so content that was in question to set his integrity and honesty upon it pronounced before the Judges to whom that tryall was commited by them that amongst the Dutch are the King of Spains vicegerents at Brussels that this Infant was to be taken for a Child not of nine but of seven months birth the time the woman went with Child being 27 weeks and such a Child must be accounted born in seven months though the time was not quite finished and one or two weeks were wanting and some dayes to make the time compleat But in this businesse the Moons circuit must be observed The Moon makes the months for women with Child that is perfect in four weeks that is in lesse than 28. days in which space of her revolution the blood being agitated by the force of the Moon the courses of women flow from them which being spent and the matrix cleansed from the menstruall blood as it useth to be oft times on the fift or seventh day Naturall conception is after the courses if after that time a man lye with a woman the conception proves to be most naturall so that the Infant born after seven or nine months is most healthfull and free from diseases to which Children use to be obnoxious For Children use to be troubled with many diseases by reason of the menstruall blood The Epilepsie is Childrens diseases that stays in the Matrix at the time of conception as are the Measils that is lively eruptions commonly called Measils and small-Pox in low dutch Maeselen ende Pocken and other red or wan Pushes that are contracted by the menstruall foulnesse and in the Spring or Summer thrust themselves forth into the outward parts of the body To this we may add the Epilipsie or Falling-sicknesse the Dutch call it Vallende Siecte which disease because it hath many differences the superstitious Gentiles of old were wont to referr it to certain Gods before the light of the Gospel was revealed to men whereas it proceeds from naturall causes and chiefly from clammy and tenacious flegme Moreover in the mouths of young Children there breed almost so soon as they are born some blisters about their throats and Palates the Araâ—â—ans call them Alcolam the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Dutch dan Sprowe What is Alcola and uâ—der rheir tongues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commonly call'd the Frog What the Frog is in low Dutch Spanare which either by incision or with ones naile or rubbing with Salt as I use to do when they fear the iron instrument or Oxymel of Squils is taken away to say nothing of Hydrocephalon A spongy head that is a head swoln with a spongy watry humour and of many other collections of humours that come from vitious milk and menstruall blood which also use to accompany men in yeares and when they seem to be gon they will come oft times again Therfore both in tilling and sowing of ground A simile from tilling of ground as also in copulation with women and manuring that ground and proâ—reation of Children even by Moses law the Moons motion was to be observed by force whereof at set times womens courses run or are stopt The Moons circuit is performed through the Zodiack in 27 dayes and in one third part of a day which dayes comprehending lesse than four weeks make a Lunar month In how many dayes the Moon peâ—fects her course especially if you take away that time that this planet lyeth hid and is not seen for she is three dayes more or lesse in conjunction that is as they say conmonly the time she is invisible See Galen of decretory dayes in which time she doth not exercise her force upon the earth and is not fit to alter them But when she begins to shew her selfe and is new and when she is full that is she is in opposition to the Sun and shews round she hath wonderfull force in conception and many other things for she both augments Corn and fruits and shell-fish and flesh that hangs to the roofs of houses is corrupted by the beams of it shining upon it such as sleep or continue long in the Moon light she makes pale and trembling and heavy headed brings the Epilepse to Children as also stupidnesse and the Palsey and many more things she doth not that she exceeds the other Planets but she doth it by being so neere to us For she being so placed in the lowest Orb The Moon is a Planet next the Earth and next to the earth she doth so guide the beginnings and increase of things that by the effect of her even after conception of the seed the Child in the Mothers Womb by the Mothers blood that nourisheth it is augmented and made to grow The time of carrying the Infant is to be referred to the course of the Moon Also all the time a woman goes with Child whether you please to measure it by dayes or months or weeks as great bellyed women commonly use to reckon must be referred and counted by the age of the Moon But she shews her forces more effectually upon the body either when first she meets with the Sun begins to be enlightned by him or when she is round and full but when she is but a halfe Moon she hath lesse forces and least of all when she is crooked and by degrees fades and is obscured For at that time there is no concourse of waters in the Ocean no abundance of humours in the bodies of men no collection of marrow in the bones so that then it is fit for tender bodies to leave off copulation and to make a League with it But I oft times use to foretell to women great with Child when their travel shall be easie When the birth will be easie and so to raise their minds to hope very well if they chance
14th year of their age or somewhat later shew some signes of maturity their courses then running so that they are fit to conceive which force continues with them till 44 yeares of their age and some that are lusty and lively will be fruitfull till 55 as I have observed amongst our Country women When a womans courses stop I know that the flowing of the terms is extended farther in some women of good tempers but that is rare nor doth allwaies that excrementitious humour flow from a naturall cause Wherefore their opinion must be examined who say that as there is no certain time of womens termes to end so neither of their conception nor cannot any set bounds be prefixed for these things For though some have their courses at 60 yeares old yet that proceeds not from a naturall cause but from some affect that is contrary to Nature which also hinders all conception For anger indignation wrath and sudden fear may cause the vessels and passages to open and cleave asunder so by a violent concourse of humours such a thing may run out many by falls and accidents having the fibres of the veins pulled asunder But since women for the most part about the yeare 45 or at the most 50 have their termes stopt and no hopes are to be had of Children by lying with them Old wives should not marry young men they do contrary to the law of Nature that marry young men or men that for greedinesse of mony woe and marry such old women For the labour is lost on both sides just as if a man should cast good seed into dry hungry lean ground It is more tolerable for a full bodied lively old man that he should marry a very young Mayd in her green and tender years For from that society they may hope for some benefit for posterity because a man is never thought to be so old and barren and exhausted but that he may get a Child But what is the Nature of man and how long the force lasts in him to get Children must be shewed by the way For since young men as Hippocrates saith are full of imbred heat about the age of 16. or somewhat more they have much vitall strength and their secrets begin to be hairy How long a man is fruitful and their chins begin to shoot forth with fine decent down which force and heat of procreating Children increaseth daily more and more untill 45 yeares or till 50 and ends at 65. For then for the most part the manhood begins to flag and the seed becomes unfruitfull the naturall spirits being extinguished and the humours drying up out of which by the benefit of heat the seed is wont to be made There are indeed some strong lusty old men who have spent their younger dayes continently and moderately who are fruitfull untill 70 yeares and subsist very manly in performing nuptiall duties examples whereof there are sufficient in Brabant and amongst the Goths and Sweeds A History done so I heard a trusty Pilate relate that when he traficked at Stockholme when Gustavus the Father of the most invincible Ericus who now reigns ruled the Land he was called by the King to be at the marriage of a man that was a hundred years old who married a Bride of 30 years old and he professed sincerely that the old man had many Children by her For he was a man as there are many in that Country who was very green and fresh in his old age that one would hardly think him to be 50 yeares old The Brabanders live very â—old Also amongst the Tungri and Campania in Brabant where the Ayre is wonderfull calme and the Nation is very temperate and frugall it is no new thing but allmost common that men of 80 yeares marry young Mayds and have Children by them wherefore Age doth nothing hinder a man forgetting of Children unlesse he be wholy exhausted by incontinence in his youngest dayes and his genitall parts be withered and barren wherefore the Dutch have a scoffing Proverb against such that are worn out A Proverb against such as are spent A simile from horses exhausted and quite broken by venery Vroech hengst Vroech ghuyle the comparison being taken from horses who if they back Mares often or too soon they will quickly grow old and will never be fit for any warlick service But what difference there is between men and women or what cause or reason there is in it that a woman is sooner barren than a man and ceaseth to eject her seed if any perhaps should require to know I say it is the natural hear wherein a man excells For since a woman is more moyst than a man A man is hotter than a woman as her courses declare and the softnesse of her body a man doth exceed her in native heat Now heat is the chief thing that concocts the humours and changes them into the substance of seed A man is longer fruitfull than a Woman which aliment the woman wanting she grows fat indeed with age but she grows barren sooner than a man doth whose fat melts by his heat and his humours are dissolved but by the benefit thereof they are elaborated into seed Also I ascribe it to this that a woman is not so strong as a man nor so wise and prudent nor hath so much reason nor is so ingenious in contriving her affairs as a man is CHAP. XXV Who chiefly take diseases from others And how it comes about that children grow well when Physick is given to the Nurse SInce contagious diseases infect all that come in the way of them yet they infect no men sooner than such whose Natures are of much affinity one with another as are Parents and Children Sisters Brothers Cousins who are in danger almost on all hand and the disease spreads amongst them And the nearer any man is of bloud and kindred the sooner he catcheth this mischief from others by reason of Sympathy that is consanguinity and agreement in humours and spirits Kindred soonest infected Wherefore when the Plague is hot and contagious diseases rage I use to speak to people of one blood to stay one from another and live something farther from them least the pestilent Ayre should infect them that will sooner lay hold of acquaintance and kindred than strangers and such as are not allyed Nurses infect children though none be free from danger The same reason serves for Nurses and children sucking at their brests for when the Nurse is sick all the force of the disease comes to the child and the Nurse is helped by it and escapes the danger For the force of the disease being diffused through the veins that are the receptacles of bloud and milk useth to be made exactly from bloud the child draws forth the worst and impure aliment whence it falls out that the whole force of the disease rests upon the child because the bloud which is the substance
the enemies Habbakuk explained in that place having his whole thoughts fastned upon God and relying upon him he opposeth himself against the enemy A simile from watch in camps Luk. 12. Math. 24. 1 Thes 5. 2 Pet. 3. and stops his way Our Saviour brings most evident comparisons whereby he warns every one of us of our duties taken from the watch kept in Armies from a thief coming to rob in the night from the sudden pangs of a woman in travel from a Bridgroom who goeth to adorn his Marriage from the secret and uncertain coming home of a Lord or Master of a Family Luk. 12. Math. 25. from sudden calamity and war from famine and want coming suddenly upon men from a figtree shooting forth blossâ—m and green figs Mark 11. from the day of death and last Judgment and many more such similitudes wherewith he gives us warning and makes us to stand in readinesse and to take care of our Salvation Christ gives young men an excellent example how to lead their lives from the first entring into it who grew himself daily in age and Wisdome Luk. 2. Christs youth commended and favour with God and men by reason of his meeknesse and integrity of life and it is fit we should principally imitate him and by his example make our selves approved to all of what estate and condition soever Jesus when he was twelve years old gave a large testimony of his goodnesse to all cordial men Christ is the mark and example of our â—ives he spake many things seasonably and to the purpose being asked questions he answered meekly and lowly without any shew of pride or boasting which are the vices arrogant and insolent young men use to be guilty of I collect from hence that there is great reason that all young people taking example from Jesus so soon as they put forth any argument of their towardnesse and ingenuity should shew something of vertue in them to their Parents and other they converse with But since there is need of some leader or guide that may shew them the way in which they ought to walk and what examples of life they ought to imitate I will shew in my discourse what Arts they ought to learn and what Patterns they ought to follow that they may attain the chief learning and may come up to the top of vertue or very near unto it CHAP. XII What Authors are fit to read to learn Eloquence of speech and soundnesse of Iudgment and what Arts are principally to be learned MAke such choice of Authors that you may have the best to read and imitate We must imitate the best A fimile from grafting of Trees For it is folly in imitation and emulation of study not to follow the best The very sowing of Corn teacheth us thus much in nature when we choose the best Wheat to sow in the ground and the art of grafting and inoculating teacheth as much for we graft the best sciences upon Trees and such as are very fruitfull the same may be observed in Painting Limming Musick Poetry and Oratory wherein the curious Scholler will endeavour to imitate the most cunning Masters in those professions The Apostle Paul will have the same thing to be done in Godlinesse and the gifts of the spirit 1 Cor. 11. By the Apostles rule we must strive for the best that men should contend for the best gifts For he that so orders his life shall never repent himself of his time spent therein as they commonly do who first enter upon a superstitious and vain course of Life and such whose speech is unseemly and are not accustomed to words that are used by learned men who must to their great trouble unlearn again what they have learned And herein Italy the Nurse of learning The commendation of Greece and Italy and learned Greece seems to be worthy of much commendation whose example is followed by France and the Low Countries in propounding to youth the knowledge of the best things For by this means it comes to passe that young men being furnished with purity of words and elegant language do seasonably attain to the knowledge of things CHAP. XIII A Censure upon the Heathen Writers THough there are some who do not justly judge of things who speak against We must embrace such Writings as will make us Eloquent in speech and banish prophane Authors as they improperly call them and would have no examples fetcht from them either for Eloquence of speech or direction of life yet I think they are not to be despised For Poets Oratours Comedians Tragedians Historians are a great help to youth to attain thereby the knowledge of words and things and to teach them the liberal Arts and solid learning unto which they make a ready and easie way What more polite learning can effect But these studies are deservedly called by the titles of humane and polite learning because they teach young people civility curtesy and good manners And from these also men in years receive honest delights and drive away the tedious cares of their lives which commonly compasse men about by reason of many businesses they are troubled with which thing is the reason that the orthodox Saint Basil In Epist ad Nepot Surnamed the Great diligently invited his Nephews to the reading of Poets and Oratours CHAP. XIV The office of a Poet and what helps he brings to studious youth and to those that are of ripe years The design of a Poet. L. 2. Epist ad Augustum HOrace shews in most elegant Verse how exact a Tutour a Poet is for language and manners being next kin to an Oratour and for this cause he is styled the Master that reacheth men the liberal Arts and how to regulate their lives A Poet is an exact teacher of manners A Poet frames the tender stutting Tongue And from ill words doth wrest the Ear that 's young And with good precepts doth inform the mind Correcting anger Envy makes men kind Relates the truth examples gives for time To come delights the Poor and sick with Rime Also a Poet inculcates some other wholesome precepts not severely or commandingly not by threatning lest they should fall away from what they have entred upon but pleasingly flatteringly sweetly and handleth all things with Art and moderation as a Horseman that tames Horses teacheth them to curvet and pranse and amble nimbly by soothing them and smacking with their mouth For to rebound and amble very fast Virg. Georg. 3. And not onely these delightfull studies raise spirit and vigour in the minds of young men but they are also usefull for men of riper years when they have time to breathe themselves from more serious and weighty matters of crabbed laws Poetry iâ— the most antient Art L. 10. c. 1. Now besides Theophrastus Cicero and Fabius testify that the Generation of Poets was the most antient and highly commended of old times For
the urine vex a man if dimnesse and blear-ey'dnesse hurt the eyes if the hands or feet be held with the Gowt Horace in Art If Scabs or swelling tumours do offend The mind of man cannot so readily perform it's office or functions Wherefore I suppose they do well who take care of their health and keep the body and all its parts free from excrements For so the mind is fit for great matters and more ready for any noble employments The greatest part of men neglecting all ornament and taking no care of their health hunt onely after wealth and is busied in getting of gain Health is better than wealth though health be better than Gold and there is nothing more to be desired than tranquillity of mind Horace confirms it by Verses L. 1. Epist 12. If thou be sound of body feet and hands 'T is better than to have rich Craesus lands For 't is not wealth nor baggs of Gold be sure Can cares of mind or body sicknesse cure And that he might recal men to a frugal and moderate use of things he adds L. 2. Epist 2. He that enjoyes his wealth Must alwaies live in health The wise Hebrew accords with the words of Horace exactly It is better to be poor and well Ecclus 30. than to be rich and sick Health and a sound body is better than any Gold or the greatest riches There is no wealth better than a sound body and no joy greater than the joy of the heart Wisd 4. therefore felicity is not to be measured by wealth or prosperous successe but by the soundnesse of the body and of the mind For he onely lives and is well that perfectly enjoyes the commodity of both these CHAP. XXIX Wholesome precepts are no lesse proper for the mind than they are for the body THere are three things reported to be most wholesome which are fit for every man to observe To feed not to full Not to fly from labour To preserve natural seed To these I oppose as many things most unwholesome which besides diseases bring on old age apace and cause men to die young To eat too much To be idle To use too much venery We must use moderation in natural things For since frugality when we banish gluttony keeps the body sound and exercise when we drive away idlenesse and sluggishnesse makes the same nimble and ready we may take examples from horses for the other Virg. l. 3. Georg. Our minds are strengthened by no industry As by declining love and venery Old age is not proper for venery For intemperate and lustfull youth makes the body feeble in old age Wherefore since we are to use moderation in our desires in our youth we are to do it much more in our age and to stop up all wayes of luxury for as it is naught in youth as Cicero saith so it is most unseemly and foul in old age For as we need strength in war and agility and force to endure labours so in love we need strength to wage war in Venus camps in the night which will consume the tediousnesse of matrimony and make us able to sustain the conditions of a froward Wife Wherefore not War nor love are fit for old men because both these carry with them many troubles and hindrances which old age is not fit nor able to undergo L. 1. Amor. Eleg. 9. Ovid hath expressed this in very elegant Verses Cupid hath Tents and every lover war Believe me Attic every lover war What times are fit for war with love agree Old souldiers are naught so old venery Love is a kind of warfar cowards then For to maintain these Ensigns are no men The Winter nights hard labour and long wayes And every pain is found in Venus frays Who sees not how uncomely it is for an old man that is full of wrinkles and worn out to fall to kissing and embracing like to young people for old folks are unable to perform those duties So Sophocles when he was old being asked by one whether he would use venerious actions answered well that the Gods had order'd it better and that he would with a good will fly from that as he would from a rude and cruel Master CHAP. XXX We must take care of our credit and reputation USe all the means you can that your acquaintance may have an excellent opinion of you We must have care of our credit and may give a laudable testimony and commendation of your worth and may think and speak of you worthily Nor be ashamed to observe what opinion the common people have of you and how they stand affected towards you For to neglect what any man thinks or speaks of a man ◠1. offic is the part saith Cicero not onely of an arrogant man but also of a dissolute man Math. 16. So we read that Christ asked his Apostles what the multitude said of him and what rumours they scattered abroad concerning him lastly what they thought of the Messias not that he sought for glory and was ambitious but that he might make trial whether after they had heard so many saving Sermons and seen so many Miracles from him they thought any better and more honourably of him than the common people did Chaist did not seek for honour amongst men Wherefore he enquired so much of them that he might draw from them a solid profession of their faith and that he might try how much they had profited in the heavenly doctrine that hath no fraud or vanity in it no deceit or impostures as the Pharises did caluminate it but is all saving and sincere delivered unto us by the truth it self and the Son of God who is the Saviour that was expected Whom when Saint Peter by the inspiration of God had openly professed in the name of them all Profession of faith and had undoubtedly proclaimed Jesus to be the Saviour of the World and that by belief in him all mankind obtains redemption Christ praised the profession of Saint Peter that he had by inspiration from above and saith that being it stood on so firm a foundation it should never be conquered or fail We must take care for decency In every action and in every word and deed be mindfull of decency and what is most comely for the reason of honesty requires that Whence it is a handsome saying that it is the chiefest Art to know what is decent that is what is fit for nature and convenient to our wit and manners Dat ù wel voeght ende betaemt How we must affect glory It is a compendious and ready way to solid glory if you shew your selves to be such a one as you would be thought to be which Horace gives us notice of 'T is good to be what men do say thou art L. 1. Epist 27. That is what thou art said to be and which the people testify of thee For if they say thou