City of Constantinople hath been afflicted with so great and such an unheard of Pestilence that they that were struck with it imagin'd that their approaching deaths were not occasioned by the maladies they groaned under but that they were kill'd by others and died furiously with these apprehensions In the time of Heraclee there sprung up such a contagion in Italy that in a little time it swept away thousands and the violence of the distemper was so great that many through impatiency in their sickness precipitated themselves into the River Tiber that they might obtain some refreshment in that extream heat which inwardly parched them Thucidides a Greek Author writeth That in his time the Air was so corrupted in Greece that there died an infinite number of people without finding the least remedy Moreover he addeth a thing more strange That those who returned to their former health lost their memory and knowledg so far that they knew not one another the Father not knowing his own Son Marc. Aurelius an Author worthy of Credit assureth us That in his time there was such a Mortality in Italy that the Historians who wrote of those times found less difficulty in counting the small number of those that were alive than in counting the great number of those that were dead The Soldiers of Vidius Cassius being in Selucia a City of Babylon entred the great Temple of Apollo where they found a Cabinet which having opened and hoping therein to find a great and inestimable Treasure there came out such an infectious air that it corrupted first all Babylon afterwards Greece and then Rome where it excited so many Pestilences that it destroy'd almost the third part of the World But leaving the Ancient Histories let us descend to them which have past under our own age as it were that we who are Christians may learn by these great miseries and afflictions which God sends us to know the great weakness and infirmity of our Humane Condition For when his anger is inflam'd against our sins he makes us feel the smart of his Justice so rigorously that there is no kind of torment and vexation with which he does not afflict and persecute his Creatures What experience have we had of this in the Year 1528 that when the Pest invaded the French Camp during the Siege of Naples the violence of the Distemper was so sharp and sudden that one was sooner dead than thought to be so And this unhappy Disease afflicted not only the Vulgar who were by it almost extinguished but also the Nobility and Commanders the Lords of Lautrec of Vaudemont De la val De Moleac the Chateignary Grandmont and other notable personages the memory of whom cannot be rehears'd without sorrow which happened also to the English when they had taken Boulon In which City was ingendred so great a Pestilence that the living could scarce bury the dead so that the King of England could not find in his Countrey any that would go and inhabit it and was necessicated to carry them thither by force bound and Manicl'd for the more they carried the more they died so that the Cantons of the City were corrupted and putrified through the Exhalations and Vapors that proceeded from the dead Carcasses The Year after that the defunct French King espous'd Queen Elenor Germany was assaulted with a new kind of Malady of which the Infected died in less than 24 hours in a pestilential Sweat and this distemper having taken its original from the Ocean spread in an instant throughout all Germany as a sudden conflagration which wasteth and consumeth every thing for before there could be found a Remedy there died so many thousands of men that many Provinces became as Desarts and waste places through the putrefaction of the Air that consum'd all that did touch it and that the Air was so much infected that their Garments were stain'd as it were with a red Cross Joachim Scilerus writeth That when the Pestilence so vehemently tormented England for so long time the vigour of the Poyson was so strong that not only Men were suffocated and extinguish'd by it but also â—he Birds left their Eggs Nests and little ones the Beasts their Dens and Caverns the Serpents and Moles appear'd in Troops upon the Earth leaving their proper abodes for vexation of the venomous Vapor contain'd in the Earth so that they were found dead under the Trees in the Fields with Pustules and Sores on their little members In the Year five hundred forty six the last day of May arose a Plague which lasted nine Months so great and terrible in Aix a City of Province that the people died at their Victuals so that the Church-yards were so full of dead Corpses that scarce any place was to be found for the interring of those that were brought thither the most part of the sick the second day fell into a Frensie and cast themselves into Wells Others threw themselves out at Windows Others were troubled with a Flux of Blood at the Nose which ran down night and day like a Flood and with this effusion of Blood they ended their lives nay the matter came to that extremity and desolation that the Women with Child miscarried in four days time they and the Children which they went withal perishing who were found afterwards changed to a Violet and Azure colour as if the blood was scattered through the whole Body In short the affliction was so great that the Father regarded not his Son nor the Husband his Wife and with Gold and Silver in their hands oftentimes died through hunger and thirst and if it happen'd at any time that they had wherewith to satisfie Nature the Distemper was so severe and violent that oftentimes they were found dead with the meat in their mouths and the fury of the Malady was so enflam'd that scarcely could there be found a person free from it And indeed people were by one single look infected a thing wonderfully strange and their breath was so venomous that thence immediately arose pestilential Buboes That which a Phisician hath left us in writing is a thing wonderful and monstrous in Nature who being deputed by them of the City for to help and succour the sick recounteth That this Distemper was so cruel and malign that notwithstanding all Medicines it ceas'd not to destroy all them that were therewith surprized having no other hope of easement in their pains than by death and were so opiniated and resolute in this that as soon as they found themselves therewith seized they themselves put an end to their miserable lives Which the same Physician asserts as having seen and experimented it in many especially in a Woman whom be called at a Window in order that she might take some Remedies whom he perceived through the same sowing up her self in her Winding sheet so that those that interred the infected entring into her house a little while after found her dead and stretch'd in the middle of
the Cities Towns and Hills thereabouts with their Inhabitants were consumed by the violence thereof which issued out with unconceivable vehemency I could likewise make mention of Thunders and Lightnings and how many Noble Personages have been destroy'd by this sudden and violent Death as Joroastus King of the Bactrians Captain in the Thehan Wars Ajax after the destruction of Troy Anastasius Emperour after the 27th Year of his Empire Carius also and many other Kings and Emperors who have come to an untimely end by this kind of Death CHAP. VIII Of Earth quakes THE Air is so requisite for the Conservation of Man that there is no Creature can live without it and yet nevertheless it 's so pernicious to mankind when it is corrupt and putrified that the most part of the forementioned Pestilences take their first original from it The Earth which is the most sweet and tractable of the Elements being the common Mother and receptacle of us all being born it nourisheth and sustains us and at last takes us into her entrails as in our Couch and keepeth us until our God shall call us to appear before his Tribunal and yet nevertheless she produceth all the venom and poison with which our poor life is continually assaulted and sometimes by her quakings and agitations many Towns have been demolished and many thousands of Men swallowed down into the depth of her Abyss In the Reign of Mithridates the Earth began to be moved with such an impetuosity that there was not only many Cities ruined but there was above a hundred thousand people swallowed up in it In the Reign of Constantine there was such a great number of Cities and their Citizens ruined in Asia that with great difficulty could the Historians number them In the time of Isocrates and Plato the Earth so opened in Europe that two great Cities with all their Inhabitants were in an instant overthrown and ruined There was never since the memory of man read of a more terrible Earthquake than that which was in the time of Tiberius Caesar by which in the space of a night twelve great Cities were swallowed with all their Inhabitants amongst which was Rollonia Ephesus Caesarea Philadelphia and many others Marc. Varro one of the most worthy Authors that have written in Latin saith That in Spain there was a great Town scituated in a Sandy-placc which was so hollowed and digged by the Connies that finally the Inhabitants for sook it for fear of being buried in its Ruins The same Author writes That there was a City in France which was rendred uninhabitable by reason of the great number of Frogs The same happened in Africa by means of the Grashoppers Theophrastus makes mention of a certain Province made desolate by innumerable companies of Worms Pliny makes mention of a Province that borders on the limits of Ethiopia where the Ants and Scorpions and other Vermin have drove into exile the Men that inhabited there The Flies drove away the Magarenses in Greece The Wasps chased the Ephesians Anthenor writeth That great swarms of Bees drove from a City its Inhabitants and made their Nests in their Houses What testimony have we here of Humane frailty what a School and Discipline to learn Man to know himself in what evidence of the Power of God over his Creatures whose Judgments are so terrible and affrightful that as soon as ever Man beginneth to glory and raise himself against his God he knoweth well how to depress him and therefore he sendeth him Heralds and forerunners of his Anger War Famine and Plagues But moreover there 's no Element nor living Creature though never so contemptible which seeketh and worketh not his ruin and who are not as Ministers and Executors of the Divine Justice as is manifest not only by the testimony of Ethnicks but also by the Sacred Writings when the Frogs and Grashoppers abandoned their proper Elements to ascend up even to the Chamber and Bed of obstinate Pharaoh We have hitherto deduced a strange Philosophy of the misery of Man for if he were of Iron or Steel or harder than a Diamond it would be notwithstanding miraculously wonderful how he could last the one half part of his life-time without being shattered and broken seeing the pain anguish travel and Martyrdom which he must every minute endure and yet notwithstanding the many misfortunes wherewith he is continually afflicted he humbleth not himself under the Almighty hand of his Creator which thing being not well understood by Plato and Pliny seeing this great Gulf of misery in which Man is plunged from his Birth even to his Sepulchre they have called Nature Step-dame and cruel Extortioner who causeth Man to pay so much for his Excellency and Dignity But both the one and the other have under the name of Nature unreasonably accused God of cruelty and injustice for all these evils and this Sea of Misery wherewith Man is overwhelmed cometh not from the hatred of God but from the malice and corruption of Man for he equalling himself with his Maker declined and fell from his pristine Nobility defacing in himself the Image of God and imprinting instead thereof the Image of the Devil Arrogancy and Audaciousness is the cause of all the wounds and maledictions which he receiveth for had it not been for Ambition and desire of being great we had been as the Angels we had remained and been now what we shall be in the Resurrection crowned with Glory and Honour Neither is this all but what is worse and far more vexatious are the distempers of our minds they being far more dangerous than those of our bodies for they of the Body shew themselves by signs either by the bad colour of the Visage or by the unequal beating of the Pulse or some other intemperature or signs of disorder and having known them the Remedy is presently sought after but he that is distempered in mind is render'd uncapable of judging of his own Condition so that the Patient knowing not his distemper seeketh not after Remedies and yet is there also a greater abuse of them which have their bodies afflicted for we call them by the names of the Diseases wherewith they are tormented as them who are troubled with Phrensie we call them Phrenetick them who are vexed with the Palsie we call them Paralytick them who labour under Joint-evil we call Gouty But we do quite otherwise in the maladies of the Mind for those who are angry and Cholerick burning in their Passion murthering one another we call them Valiant and Magnanimous and look on them as persons having their Honour in great Recommendation Those who seduce Women and Maidens immersing themselves in Lust and lasciviousness we term them Lovers and persons endued with Kindness Hmility and sweetness of Disposition Those who are Ambitious and do endeavour by all illicite means to make themselves Great and Honourable we call them Noble Gallant and Persons of Noble and active Spirits Them who are Covetous and make
the prize from all Countries and Regions whatever and that in Pliny's time who writeth of Drunkenness That it was so much in vogue and fashion in his days that they usually drank and pour'd it down till they threw it up again Paul Diacre in his History of the Lumbards relateth a Story which seems little less than prodigious Of Four Ancient Men who made a Banquet or Assignation at which they defied and callenged one another to Drink one against one reckoning the time of each one's years and he that drank against his opposite Companion must be inforced to drink as oft and as many times as he had lived years and the youngest was more than Fifty five the Second Sixty three the Third Eighty seven and the Fourth Ninety two after which manner 't is unknown what they drank at this meeting But 't is certain that he that drank least drank Fifty five Cups of Wine the others following and consequently as many as they had years so that one of them drank Ninety two Cups It is not without cause therefore that the great Philosopher Plato knowing the prejudice that Men receive by Wine said that the gods had given it to them for their torment and punishment that they might take vengeance of their sins and offences making them after they are therewith infatuated murder one another Which Cyneas Ambassador of King Pyrrhus considering the excessive height of their Vines in Egypt said that with great reason such a Mother was hang'd so high feeing that she bore such a dangerous off-spring as Wine Wherefore Androcides advertis'd this great Monarch Alexander That wine was the blood of the earth and that he ought to have an especial care in the use of it which having not observ'd through his intemperance kill'd Clitus burn'd the City of Persepolis put to death his Physitian and and committed many other infamous enormities And 't is not only of our time that these guzlers have begun to lay the foundation of their Drunkenness and Luxury but they began to do so as soon as they began to be at all The Luxury of our first Parents was the cause why the Gates of Paradise were shut up and barred against us Esau sold his birthright The great Prophet St. John Baptist after the Banqueting of wicked Herod was cruelly slain Dives was damn'd For it is said expresly in the Text That he fed himself deliciously for which he was cast into hell Noah being overcome with Wine shew'd the subject of his shame and was mocked by his own Children Lot deflowred his own Daughters It plainly appears then how much nature hath favoured other Creatures more than us in that they can so well bound and regulate their appetites that they take in but just what is necessary and expedient for the conservation of their health So that they are not vexed with an infinite of Maladies and distempers as we are and when at any time they are so Nature hath taught them their proper Remedies without need or recourse to Physitians who under pretence of a Recipe change R into D and make it Decipe and we must pay very dear for the assistance of him that takes away our lives For the most part of their Lapative Medicines are nothing else but so many Hammers wherewith they knock men on the head and destroy them CHAP. IV. The advantages of Beasts and other Animals over us in respect of natural instinct whereby they have recourse to proper Remedies for their particular infirmities and distempers WHen it comes to pass that other Creatures are sick Nature hath made and taught them Remedies as Stock-doves Jays Partridges c. who purge their superfluities with the Leaves of the Lawrel The Pigeons Turtles and Pullets with the herb Helixine The Dogs and Cats by eating of Grass When the Hart is wounded he has recourse to his Dictamum When the Weasel would combat with the Rat she prepareth and fortifieth her self with Rue that she may more vigorously set upon her enemy The Boors Physick themselves with Ivy The Bears with Mandragoras The Eagles knowing the impediments which they have in their Productions by reason of their streightness seek every where for the Stone called Aetites otherwise Eagle-stone which they bring into their Nests for that purpose which is at this time made use of by several of the Italian Women for the easing their Travel When the Swallows perceive that by the Smoke of the Chimnies their young ones are offended they help them with the herb Gelidon The Snakes and other Serpents in the Spring of the year that they may cast off their skin more easily and feeling that their sight fails them eat Fennel in order to their restauration The Pellican letteth himself Blood to heal the wounds received of the Serpent The Stork as Naturalists report hath taught Apothecaries the use of Clysters putting Moss in their seats when they find themselves oppressed with stoppages And Plutarch as though ravished with admiration at the favours which Nature hath bestowed on other Animals hath assured us That they are not ignorant of the Three kinds of Medicines for after he hath proved that they know the vertue of several Herbs and Simples as we have afore noted addeth That they know also the second part which we call diet For when they feel themselves over-filed they moderate their feeding and use abstinence as Wolves and Lions who perceiving the incommodiousness arising to them by their fatness abstain from flesh and couch themselves till they have all digested And as to the Third part which is Chirurgery it is held for certain That the Elephants have skill in 't for they draw out the Darts and Arrows out of the Bodies of them which are hurt with them and that with no small dexterity CHAP. V. That Man hath been instructed in several useful Arts and Inventions as also in sundery points of Morality and Philosophy by Birds Beasts and Fishes AN Ancient Greek Philosopher named Herophilus he with many Lamentations bewailed the miserable condition of Man who though elevated above all other Creatures yet in many things was he to learn of them witness the Swallow who hath taught him building for when they are near the time of their breeding they take strong twigs and lay them for the foundation of their Nests and soft ones on the top and when by reason of the heat they can't get durt which they use instead of Lime or Morter in their Edifices they fly to some River and therein bathe themselves tell they are well wetted and then take dust which they mingle with water and so plaister their Nests stop and fill up the holes and crannies and build their little habitations in form of a Spire round and exact not foursquare knowing that to be more proper and convenient for to preserve their young from the attempts of those that would hurt them But who wonders not when he sees and considers the admirable work of the Spider the Scholars of
whom are our Women who learn of them to make the Linnen and the Fisher-men their Nets They are excellent in their labour and exceeding advantageous in the industry for there 's no knots in their work or superfluous cost for all proceedeth from their little bodies and they gently part and divide their labour betwixt them for the Female she spins and maketh the Web and the other he goes out upon the chase for their living and is lying in ambushcade that he might intrap the prey and make him fall into his Nets and though their bodies be no bigger than a Pea yet nevertheless they have so much vivacity and industry that they take the greatest flies and sometimes the little Lizard in their Nests and observe so well the season of hunting that they seem to have skill in Astrology contrary to us who stay for the fair weather for the time of their hunting is when the Sky is cloudy which is to us a presage of rain as writeth Aristotle in his History of Animals The Story of Plutarch concerning the Crow which he saith was seen by him in Asia is not a little wonderful Who being urged with thirst and want of water he perceived a narrow vessel which had some small quantity in it but by reason of its depth and straightness could not reach it and therefore cast in stones that by that means it might rise up that he might the better sip of it But who taught this Animal this secret of Philosophy that heavy things tend downward and those things that are lighter ascend upward and give place If we would consider the wisdom and prudence of men we shall find little Beasts that are continually trodden under feet in many things to excel and surpass man and seem to have some natural vertue in every property in Prudence Force Clemency Rigor Discipline and Erudition for they know one another they distinguish amongst themselves they desire those things that are profitable and avoid the contrary shun danger and oftentimes cozen and over-reach men provide for the future heap up what is necessary as well for the time to come as that which is present which being attentively considered by many Ancient Philosophers who were not asham'd to dispute and call in question whether the Bruits were not with us participators of Reason To lay aside Medicine Chyrurgery and Architecture and other Melancholy Disciplines in which we have proved the Animals to have no small infight and sometimes to have been the Tutors of Men Let us search into some more sprightly Sciences such as is Musick and Harmony For who is in the World that is so stupid and blockish dull and senseless who is not astonished with inexpressible delectation in hearkening to the melodious harmony of the diverting Nightingale and that a voyce of so high a strain and so pleasing a sound should be heard from so little a creature Moreover that he should continue so obstinate in his chant that his Life should rather leave him than his voyce So that it seemeth that he has been instructed by some exquisite Master in Musick Sometimes he counterfeits the Bace sometimes the Treble and sometimes the Tennor and when he is weary of his warbling he counterfeits his voice and sings like another Bird that is accustomed but to one single note and then anon all of a sudden he penetrateth so high that he passionates swounds and is as it were in a trance with an infinite variety of division which elevates the soul to Heaven not only of men but other little Birds whom he charmeth and stoppeth with his Notes and invites them by his melifluous Song to hearken to him and imitate him and not only contented with this you 'l see him sometimes instructing his young and provoking them to the same harmony learning to observe the tone and carry them on at one breath some in length aspirating the others sometimes to curb intire notes and duly to change and divide them into Minimes and Crotchets sometimes to quaver his voyce and sometimes to run by division that no humane artifice could ever yet counterfeit Although Aristophanes in his Comedy of the singing Birds hath employed all the force of his wit in thinking to imitate them Which did not a little affect Democritus with wonder and astonishment who publickly maintained That the Swans and Nightingales had taught men Musick and that all those spritely Airs wherewith we are so much delighted are nothing else but the Petty Larcinies which we stand guilty of to the Birds Wherefore it was that wise Solomon well knowing in how many things we are surpassed and excelled even by the very Beasts sends us to their Schools and Universities when he saith in his Proverbs That there are Four little creatures on the earth who are wiser than the wisest The Ants who are a feeble people and yet nevertheless they provide and lay up in the Summer their provision and sustenance for the Winter The Conies who are a kind not strong nevertheless make their houses in Stone The Grasshoppers who have no King and yet go out in Bands The Spider weaveth snares with his Fingers and is in the Palaces of Kings It is a thing almost beyond belief when we consider and behold the little Ants bearing their heavy burdens with so great and excessive a diligence and so exact an order amongst them biting the tops of the Corn which they carry into their little holes for fear they should bud and putrifie parting them by the middle that they may carry them more easily into their Storehouses and if they are damped or wetted lay them into the Sun that it may dry them But with what art and industry are their little lodgings composed with The entrance and going in of which is not foreright and straight but is crooked and wandring and full of circuits and turnings to prevent the surprising entrance of any other creatures they are not also without their different apartments and distinctions they have one Chamber in which sits their Parliaments and Assemblies another in which they store up their yearly sustenance and provision The third as saith Plutarch is their Coemitry or burying place wherein they interr their dead Brethren For it 's most certain that they are great and strict observers of Funeral-Rites and Solemnities The Philosophy of Solomon therefore is not at all unprofitable who admonisheth us by an example and Simile drawn from the industry and diligence of these little creatures To fly and avoid as much as may be all inclinations to sloth and idleness The Primitive Church commanded that each one should live by his pains and labour without licensing and permitting idle persons to consume and waste the goods of the earth which manner as Cicero relates was observed by the Romans with such great exactness and severity That no Roman in times past durst walk about the City without a Badg or Mark by which he might shew the Trade and occupation wherewith he got
his living that all men might know that he lived by his labour and not by the sweat and pains of other men for which Reason the Consul had born before him his Rods and Axes the Priest a Hat or Chaplet in manner of a Coif the Tribune a Mace the Gladiator a Sword the Taylor his Shears the Smith a Hammer the Orator and Rhetorician a Book they suffering not that those that were Masters of the Sciences should be the Disciples and Scholars of vices So that Mar. Aurel. making mention of the ancient diligence and industry of the Romans writeth That they set themselves with so great earnestness to their labour that a person in all Rome could not be found so much at leasure as to carry Letters two or three days journey though of never so great importance Which considered may not a little reflect upon those which make profession of Christianity for if all the idle and useless persons were chased and banished out of our Cities the remainder would be a very small and inconsiderable number And if we would consider all things whatsoever which God hath created we shall find no one but Man who remaineth in idleness For by how much the more the things that are created are excellent and perfect the more is there given to them of labour and travel you see the Sun how 't is never free from continual and perpetual motion as also the Moon how greatly unacquainted with stops and stayings The fire can never be without some kind of operation the Air flies continually whirling from one side to the other the Waters Fountains and Rivers flow and are in perpetual agitation the earth is never at rest but is always busied in producing one thing or other wherefore laying all things before our consideration we shall find that nature never ceaseth her operation Finally there 's no plague more pernicious to the publick than idleness for its inventions and broodings are scarce any thing else than vice and wickedness so that we ought to esteem idle persons far worse than the bruit Beasts whose hides serveth us for Shoes their flesh for Meat their force and strength to cultivate the earth but the idle person serveth for nothing but to offend God and scandalize the innocent and eat the bread which other men have sweated for We may therefore apprehend by what hath been forementioned how liberally nature hath favoured other creatures and hath been as it were prodigal in their behalf so that men are constrained when they consider the indulgences of nature to other Animals in their regular way of living to follow and imitate them in many things But what Murderer can there be though never so great an affronter of Nature and desirous of human Blood that will not moderate his desire of mischief and malevolency when he considers that there is no Animal though never so fierce and furious that will kill his own Kind What Child can there be so ungrateful towards his Parents who will not be moved to gratitude when he seeth the little Storks feeding their ancient and decrepit Parents in acknowledgment of the benefits that they have received from them Aelian reports a matter not a little admirable That their Young are so tender of them that if provision is not at hand to relieve them then they strain and enforce themselves to vomit and cast up that which they had eaten the day before lest they should perish with hunger and with this they sustain them till they have gotten supplies from abroad Where is the Father who is so cruel and unnatural or the Mother so estranged from humanity that dares to murder their off-spring or be guilty of the least unkindness if they call to mind the Dolphins zeal for the preservation of their young who if it come to pass that any of them are taken by Fishers follow them continually even to the very last extremity and will rather suffer themselves to be taken The which is not only peculiar to the Dolphin but also to another Fish called Glaucus who though not so sociable and familiar with men as the other nevertheless he hath such great affection for his young that whensoever he seeth any that may seem affrightful he taketh them up into his mouth swallowing them down alive and when the peril and fear is over he disgorges them whole into the water which is indeed a thing almost incredible that his love should be so great to his young that he should force his Nature and endure any pain rather than they should be prejudiced Who is he that will not bear contentedly the irksomness of poverty if he considers the nature of a Fish called Polypus who feeling himself urged with hunger and seeing that food is wanting to him eateth the ends of his Finns and Curtails knowing in time that they will grow again Where is the Man so pusillanimous and fearful who is not in some measure comforted against the fear of Death when it presents it self to him when he hath considered the sweet singing of Swans and that when their end approaches though they are without hopes or thought of living again There is no Father can be so cruel barbarous or unnatural to defraud some of his Children to advantage the others if he hath taken notice of the order which the little Swallow observeth in the nourishing of his brood who as saith Aelian in his Greek History of Animals keepeth exactly to the rules of distributive justice and because she cannot bring all at once she goes divers times to her feeding and violateth not in the leastwise the right of Primogeniture for he that is first born is first fed the Second the second rank and so consequently the others which was the cause that an Indian Philosopher named Diphilus after having contemplated the manner and order of this little Bird and others cryed out That Nature had engraven in them as it were certain laws and formularies for the assistance of men in the conduct of their lives Is there any Man so stupid and blockish that encreaseth not his knowledg by considering the prudence of the despised Cuckoo who being sensible by instinct of Nature of his infirmity and excessive frigidity so that he cannot hatch his eggs watcheth and at last spieth an occasion that he may lay them in other Birds Nests first breaking theirs that were there before Which manner of the Cuckoo Eulgentius observing said That he was not unworthy in some things to be imitated by those Fathers who have many Children and by reason of their poverty cannot bring them up themselves they would do well to place them out in others Houses whereby they may get an honest subsistence What Servant is there so dull and sloathful that is not a little moved when he considereth the noble generosity of the Warr-horse who is so courageous that he had rather dye than leave his Master in danger so that he hath such a brisk kind of sprightfulness that is
of his bringing up what pain and vexation have they who have the charge of him Some do even tear and burst themselves with crying and howling so that there needs no larum-bell to rouse them in the night that have the charge of him Others are continually running and dashing themselves against one thing or other and there 's scarce any thing else for the most part but wounds and bruises to be seen in their poor little bodies without reckoning many Hereditary diseases which they bring from the corruptions of their Parents But who standeth not astonished to think that so miserable a creature one so overwhelmed with poverty and malediction so vile and mean an Object yet in a little while should become so proud and haughty If then the great Prophet Jeremiah with vehement compassion hath deplored the state of Captive Babylon If the Consul Marcellus hath lamented the City of Syracuse when he saw it burning And Saluste the corruptions of Rome we may with them well deplore the miserable state of Man entring this World his Progression and Perillous Conversation therein and his sorrowful and woful exit which made Job grieve and lament that he was not stifled in the womb of his Mother and murmured that her knees had sustained him and complaining of the breast that had gave him suck And Jeremiah moved by the like passion considering that man is formed of the dust conceived in sin and born in sorrow and at last made the prey of Worms and Serpents wished that the womb of his Mother had become his Sepulchre and the Matrix his Tomb And the same Job again saith That man born of a woman liveth but a short time here on earth who cometh up as a flower and fleeth as it were a shadow and never continueth in one stay What could be more forcibly and efficaciously set forth than this Discription which this holy man makes of human Calamity In comparison of which all the Sentences and Treatises of the Ethnicks are but as dreams and smoke When the Spirit of God would induce man to humble and know himself he calleth him son of a woman and has he done it without cause for amongst all the Creatures which God hath Created there is none more subject to weaknesses and infirmities than a woman especially them who are big with child for scarce have they one month in a year which is not spent in fear and trembling Then afterwards he saith Living a short time and indeed what is more short than the life of man when 't is but stopping his nose or mouth and his life is ended For his life is nought else but a blast which is inclosed therein by reason of which Theophrastus and many other Ancients murmured against Nature that she had indued the Hart and Crow and many other Animals with such a long life and that to no purpose whereas to man 't is quite otherwise his life being so short and of so little durance that though he has occasions enough to imploy it yet nevertheless is it retrenched and abreviated and that by so many ways as sleep dreams anger and all manner of misfortunes So that if we would reckon every thing there remaineth less than nothing of that which we may call life seeing that the Prophet compareth man to a shadow what other thing then is a shadow but that which deceiveth the sight A phantasm a deceitful figure without substance which sometimes appeareth to be great sometimes little the very same is it of man sometimes he seemeth to be great when indeed he is but little or rather nothing at all for when he is most highly lifted up and when he is on the greatest and most elevated degree of honour he then perisheth suddenly and we know not what is become of him no more than of a shadow when the night is come I saw the wicked faith David mighty and flourishing as the green Lawrel tree but I passed by and I saw suddenly he was not I sought for him but he was no where to be found CHAP. IV. Man's Misery further considered in the course and Education of his Youth WE have shewed through how many perils and dangers man cometh out of his first labyrinth of infancy Let us now consider him a little more advanced in age let us see whether there is any end of his miseries and if we would be equitable judges we shall find that he is so far from ending of them that he precipitateth and rusheth himself farther into them for that is the time wherein Nature hath provided for him a most furious combat the blood beginneth to boil the flesh excites and summâ—â—s him to voluptuosness sensuality guides him the world flatters him the Devil tempts him youth invites him and it is almost impossible that being beset with so many vicious allurements that he is not at the last vanquished and cast down for to him that hath riches youth liberty and delicacies all the Vices of the world saith Marc. Aurel. lay siege to and easily overcome him and that many times through fault of his Parents who teach him not either by Example or Precept the ways of Virtue and Piety but leave him to the fury of his wicked inclinations And if Ely was so grievously punished for not correcting his Children what can those Fathers likely expect who instead of being their correctors have been their corruptors Such Parents may well be compared to the Ape who so huggeth her young ones that she killeth them and are oftentimes the causâ— of their shameful and untimely end The Ancient Romans had the Fathers which chastised not their Children in so great contempt and abhorrency that they made a Law which they called Falcidia by which it was ordered that for the first fault the party offending should be admonished for the second he should be chastised for the third he should be hanged and the Father banished the not correcting his Son being imputed to him as if participator in the Crime But I would now willingly ask what the Ancient Romans would do if they beheld the present pitiful state of many of our Republiques what fines what punishment what penalty would they lay upon those Fathers who instead of establishing a rule and government in their houses and shewing them a good pattern for there imitation corrupt and deprave them by their vicious and wicked Example for the first Precept and Rule of good living they receive from them is to Curse and Blaspheme to be Intemperate in their eating and drinking and to dissipate their substance in Whoring Gaming and all manner of debauchery there being not also a few Mothers in the world who do as Herodias learning their Daughters to dance paint plaister patch and disguise their Faces to load themselves with Rings and Jewels that they may tell every one that meets them how inwardly barren they are of all true worth and value But it will be with them in the end as it was with David the
prickles God having driven man out of Paradice he sent him as an exile or banished man and declared to him that the earth should be accursed for his sake and that in the sweat of his brows he should eat of the Fruits of it for it should produce thorns and thistles until he returned to the earth from whence he came And indeed who is it that has had fuller experience of this malediction than the poor Husbandman who many times after he hath laboured sowed and dunged the earth and all the day long spent himself with pain and trouble and endured the parching heat of the Sun and the rigorous severity of the cold and sometimes the biting of Serpents and sweated and tired themselves all the year round in expectation of the Fruits of their labour and straight there cometh tempestuous and unseasonable weather and cuts him off from all his longing expectations and he receives the unwelcome news of the death of his Cattel another the Souldiers whilest he has been occupied in the fields have pillaged his house and carried away whatsoever he has there so that when he returns from his labour instead of being comforted and receiving rest and consolation is met by his Wife and Children with lamentable relations of the spoil of his substance in short the rustick occupation cannot be more fitly compared than to a continual running-sore or ulcer having a perpetual cause of sorrow sometimes of one thing sometimes of another sometimes of too much Rain some times of too much Drought CHAP. VIII The Miserable life of Merchants considered BUT leaving the poor Husbandmen making their complaints Let us seek farther and inquire into the business of Merchants which at first view seemeth exempt and void of Miseries promising some repose upon the account of the Riches wherewith it aboundeth which employment many wise men as Solon Thales Hippocrates and others have exercised which is a great cause of the Amity and Friendship which we have with Forreign Princes transporting to one City what aboundeth in another but we cannot so well disguise the matter but that at first sight almost we may discern with how great disquiet the lives of Merchants are accompanied to how many dangers are they subject and that continually as well by Sea as Land without reckoning that for the most part of time they are as Fugitives and Vagabonds out of their Towns and Countries and are unlike in nothing to banished men but only that their banishment is voluntary because that they would steal ransack and ravish burn and spoil every thing as well by Sea as Land and all for that they might satisfie their covetous desire of gain and are contented to be deprived of the rest and comfort that they might receive from their Wives and Children Lands and Possessions and be every minute in hazard of their lives and all for an unsatiable avarice which torments them without taking notice that the first Sanctuary of their Confraternity is no other thing than to swear forswear cheat and deceive their Neighbour so that scarce any one Trafficking can enrich himself but by fraud and cousenage and they have a common Proverb amongst them That there needs but only turning their backs towards God for two or three years and a little straining their Consciences for to enrich themselves and make up their Fortunes With which also we may reckon many evils and vexations which belong thereunto when they bring Merchandize from other Countries which are not any ways necessary to the life of man hut only for the amusement of women and children as if our nature of it self was not enough infirm and inclinable to dote on fopperies but we must by such fooleries as these whet and stir it up whilest that there is neither Kingdom nor Province which they cheat not by these novelties and the worst is having received an impression of strange manners they communicate them to us with their Merchandize and that 's not all neither for under pretence and colour of Traffick they hold Intelligence and Correspondency with Forreign Princes discover our secrets lend them Money and in the end sell and betray their Country which hath been experienced in France to the great detriment and desolation of many people But letting pass thousands of their frauds which they use as Sophisticating and disguising their Drugs though mens lives are concerned in them yet nevertheless their art depends so much upon 't that they instruct their Factors and Servants in their Minority and to them who can with most cunning falsify forswear lye aequivocate counterfeit the Genuoise Florentine Venetian they will give greater wages And the matter is brought now to that pass that you durst scarcely go out of a Shop after having bid money for a Commodity but returning presently you shall find it changed and another offered to you as the same by these youngsters who make it no matter to engage their souls to the Devil that they may enrich their Masters There is another sort also of Merchants whom we have not as yet taken notice of who set forth their Shops with other mens estates and borrow of one and the other and after that they have by such artifices as these amassed great sums of money turn Bankrupts and fly far enough from their Creditors finding them where they live at their ease on that which they have cheated and defrauded leaving their Creditors oftentimes in such poverty that there has been them so desperate as to hang themselves seeing that they are frustrated of that which they thought as sure as in their own possession Which things being seriously considered by the Athenians they would not permit that Merchants should dwell with other Citizens but ordered them certain places a-part where they exercised their Merchandize There hath been many Ancient Common-Wealths where the Merchants were not received into Dignities and publick Offices nor admitted to the Councel of the Citizens CHAP. IX Of the Miserable life of the Soldier NEXT let us consider the Tragical Life of them which serve in the Wars which is so severe and rigorous that even the brute beasts would have it in horror who lie close and hid in the night in their Holes and Caves but the Soldier he watches always and lodgeth himself at the Sign of the Moon indureth the Rain Wind Hail Snow suffers hunger heat and cold and when he heareth the sorrowful sign of Battel he must resolve with himself either to receive present Death or else to Murder his Neighbour and offereth himself to be killed for five-pence a day But wouldest thou know how piteous and deplorable a Spectacle War is Have you ever seen the Conflict of the Bear with the Lyon or other like furious Beasts what roaring what rage what cruelty they use in tearing and dismembring one another But how much greater cruelty is it when we see Man against Man transformed as it were into brute Beasts exercising their passionate humours against their fellow Creature
But not to take notice of an infinite of evils which thereon depend It is the poor people who have Built so many Famous Towns and Cities and who by their pains and labour have enriched them Fortified and maintained them but they see them demolished wasted and spoiled their Cattel driven away their Corn burnt up and destroy'd and many times their selves murdered always in fear and perpetual anxiety There 's no Family that lamenteth not The Arts and ingenious Sciences are neglected and lye altogether disregarded the poor people hindred and are forced to starve and perish with hunger or fly and betake themselves to unlawful ways that they may sustain their poor and miserable lives The Virgins they are Violated the Chaste Matrons are Forced and Ravished the Laws are Silenced Humanity and Affability are Extinguished Equity is Suppressed Religion is Contaminated Holy Places Prophaned the Ancient Men carried away Captive and see oftentimes their Childrens brains dashed out before their Faces Women made Widows Children Orphans and an infinite of evils and Calamities too long to be recounted The Kings Princes and Monarchs envied for the Subsidies which they Levy from the people there 's scarce any thing save murmurings hatred cursings and imprecations Strangers must be courted and entertained into service great sums of Money must be disbursed for the carrying on the design whether by Sea or Land Must Fortifie Bulwarks Ramparts set up Tents Train Machins Cannons Armed Chariots clear Ditche set Watches and Sentinels and the like exercises of War But alas Is it not sufficient that Nature hath created Man so miserable and abject a Creature and subject to so many evils but that over and above he must be plagued with the miseries of War a pest so strange and pernicious that it comprehendeth and surmounteth all other kind of evils So cruel and contagious that it flicteth not only the wicked but many times the harmless and innocent Moreover If that our rage exerted it self only against the Stranger or Barbarian the Victory over whom being gained might bring some contentment to the Victor But good God! Would we know what are the Glories and Trophies of the Wars amongst Christian Princes Their saftey and conservation is the ruin of their Neighbours their riches are the poverty and spoils of others their joy is the lamentation and tears of others and for the most part their Victories are not so Fortunate but that the Victor and Vanquished do lament both together for there was never any Battel so happy but the Conquerour himself repented if touched with the least Humanity Some Heathens there have been that have freely confessed it as the great Emperour Marc Aurelius who after many glorious Victories obtained of his Enemies as he was received in Triumph in Rome resenting in his soul the injury which he had done his fellow Creatures begun to cry out as he was drawn in his Triumphant Chariot What greater foolery or vanity can a Roman Emperour be guilty of because that he has forced many Towns and Cities altered and disturbed their Pacifick Government destroyed and raised their Forteresses and Castles robbed the poor and enriched the Tyrants made an infinite of Widows and Orphans and for the amends of all this waste and damage we are received with Triumph and Magnificence Many are dead many have laboured and one alone has the glory To which he adjoyns By the immortal gods saith he when they conducted me to Rome in such Triumph and I saw the poor Captives led in Chains and heard the lamentation of the Widows I remembred the dead and beheld an infinite Treasure ill gotten if I rejoyced in publick I wept and lamented in private ond began to exclaim against Rome saying Wherefore dost thou rejoyce at others Misfortunes Art thou more Ancient than Babylon Fairer than Hely Richer than Carthage Stronger than Troy more Peopled than Thebes more surrounded with Ships than Corinth more Delicious than Tire more Fortunate than Numance which are all ruin'd and decay'd though guarded with so many Vertuous and dost thou think to abide continually that art stuffed up with so many Vicious â—elieve it as a thing certain that that glory which now is with thee was formerly with them and the destruction which is now with them will certainly be with thee also Are we not afraid and ashamed we who are brought up in a better School and Illuminated with the Divine Spirit That this Pagan shall rise up in judgment against us who set at so low a rate mans lives seeing that War already hath so many years disturbed Christendom that you scarce find a Country in Europe which is not tainted with Humane Slaughter Halaricus King of the Goths having Sacked Rome as recounteth Paul Orosius made Proclamation That there should be no violence or hurt done to them who had betaken themselves for refuge to the Churches but the matter is come to that pass in our days that there is no security in the Temples and Holy Places in which Virgins and Matrons have been Deflowred and Violated and the Sheep of Jesus Christ Slaughtered so much have men exceeded the bounds of Justice and Piety who without favour or respect to Age Sects or Dignity Massacre all and seem to fight and ruin Nature it self But how come we so inclinable and ready to destroy and ruin them for whose conservation the Lord hath died Why are we so prodigal of their lives and blood for whom Jesus Christ has shed his Why have we not as mucâ—â— compassion of our Brethren and Fellow-Creatures as the brute Beasts have one of another who exert not their rage nor shew forth their cruelty against them of their own kind or if that it happen that they fight and combat it is then when they are pressed with hunger or for the defence of their young and tâ—â—â— defend themselves with those arms which Nature has bestowed on them without joyning Thunders and Machines invented by the Devils there being nothing on earth which is not quelled and vanquished by the force and fury of the Cannon so that this Invention is not only more dangerous and mischievous than all other Arms but is also more pernicious than venom or poison CHAP. X. The Miseries of Courtiers considered WE have before discoursed on the business of War and the gain and advantage which accrues to men thereby Let us look now into the Palaces of Princes and see what is the Felicity of the Courtier and to him who looks that way can there seem to be any greater happiness than to be favoured by his Prince have always his ear ready Be caressed honoured and sought to by every one but you shall find them there who are crafty as the Fisherman who as soon as ever his Net is filled up he draws and is gone with all and others who play at put-out some stay till they are full as Sponges and in the end are squeezed themselves out of all they have Others do nothing else but invent
continual fear And what felicity can he have though chief of all having so many under his protection who must watch for them all and hear all their complaints and the particular grievances of every one endeavouring the safety of every individual inviting some by liberality to do well others by fear and terror He must not be less solicitous for maintaining peace amongst his people than to defend them from the Incursions and Invasions of Foreigners Pogge Florentin hath made a particular Treatise concerning the Infelicity of Princes he means wicked ones where he saith That usually three sorts of people are to them most agreable and familiar the flatterers hold the first rank who are the Capital enemies of truth empoysoning their souls with so pestiferous a venome that it is contagious to all the world their rashness and foolishness they term wisdom and prudence their cruelty justice their luxury and lascivousness gayeties and pastimes if they are covetous they call them thrifty and frugal if prodigal free and liberal so that there can be no Vice with which their Prince is not infected but they 'l disguise and palliate it under pretence of some Vertue The second are the inventors and contrivers of new Subsidies who rest never a night but that in the morning they bring some new project to the Prince how he may draw Money from his poor people causing new Laws to be composed abrogate form reform diminish adjoyn demand confiscations and proscriptions so that their whole study is nothing else but to encrease the calamities and miseries of the Subject There are also another kind who under pretence of honesty and love of virtue and goodness have always their eyes on the lives and manners of others espying and watching their miscarriages that they may give notice of them to their Prince that they may get their Estates and build up their own Fortunes upon the ruins of other men and care not if they make them lose their lives so that they may go away with what they have Wherefore the Ancients as writeth Heroditas if that their Kings and Princes were born away by injustice in publick administrations they condemned them for Devils after their death assembling themselves with their Priests in their Temples and publickly prayed their gods that they would not receive them into happiness recommending them to the Infernal furies that they might condignly torment them Which has not been only observed of the Ancients but also of the Moderns of our time who have used such like imprecations as recounteth Don Antonine de Guevara Chronicler to the Emperour in his Epistle where he saith That to the Viceroy of Sicily for vengeance of the Tyrannies that he exercised towards his Subjects they put after his death on his Sepulchre the Epitaph which follows Qui propter nos homines Et propter nostram salutem Descendit ad inferos Who for us men And for our salvation Descended into Hell These then are some of the miseries which accompany the Scepter the Thorns which they have for counterpoise of their Royal Dignity which ought to be as a Lamp to light all the world but when 't is obscured with Vice it is more signally reproachful than in any private person for they sin only as writeth Plato through the fault that they commit but these by the ill example which they give If it be hard then and difficult to be good as writeth Hesiod yet is it harder and more difficult for Kings to be so For the great Honour and Deliciousness which they see themselves possessors of are as so many inducements to evil What was Saul before he was chosen King how greatly was his Virtue celebrated in holy Writ whom the Lord himself had chosen yet nevertheless was it soon eclipsed How admirable was the beginning of the Reign of Solomon but being plunged in Kingly delights he gave himself wholly a prey to women Of twenty two Kings of Judah there was but five or six found who persisted in virtue and goodness As for the Kings of Israel if you would search into their Lives from Jeroboam Son of Nebat even to the last they being nineteen in number have all of them ill governed and managed the affairs of their Kingdoms If you consider the Estate of the Assyrians Persians Greeks and Egyptians they will present more bad than good What have been the Kings and Roman Emperours who have governed one of the most flourishing Empires of the world have they not been devoted to all kind of vice and cruelty so that we cannot read their scandalous Lives in History without horror and detestation What was the State of the Roman Republick before that Sylla and Marius maimed it before Cataline and Catullus troubled it before Julius Caesar and Pompey confounded it before that Augustus and M. Anthony destroyed it before Tyberius and Caligula defamed it before that Domitian and Nero corrupted it for although they enriched it with many Countries and Kingdoms yet nevertheless the Vices that they brought with them are greater than the Kingdoms that they Conquered for the riches thereof are lost but the Vices continue What remains are there now of the memory of Romulus to whom the Roman City owns its Foundation of Numa Pompilus who erected so high the Capitol of Ancus Marcius who environed it with walls of Brutus who delivered it from Tyrants of Camillus who drove out the French Do they not yield us the knowledg how little felicity there is in Principality which is more subject to the assaults of Fortune than any thing else in the world for oftentimes the thread of their lives come to break in the hour that they hope most and the infamy of their actions is set down in Historical Record which Kings and Princes and others constituted in Authority ought a thousand times more to fear than the slanderous tongue that can defame only the living but writing makes ignominious those that are dead Which things being exactly weigh'd by Dioclesian and other Princes they abandoned their Scepters and Empires and betook themselves to solitary retirements and were contented with little rather than luxuriously to enjoy the volatile pleasures of the world CHAP. XII The Miserie 's incident to Popes and Prelates BUT leave we Kings and Emperours And let us come to the Ecclesiasticks beginning at their chiefs which are the Popes and Prelates And are they not happy and fortunate in this world Their Dignities being the Supreme of all and acquired without pain and labour without Wars Weapons and effusion of blood and conserv'd without perils they command and controul all Monarchs reverence and honour them being rich and impal'd with Honour and Dignities But if you will consider the end of the Tragedy you will be so far from judging them happy or envy their high Estates that you would rather pity them For if they would well govern the Ship of St. Peter according to the Command of God they must become as a publick Vassal whose
it with her Winding-sheet half sewed about her CHAP. III. Of the Miseries which Mankind have suffered by Famine and many other Plagues WHEN our God is angry with us for our sins he usually punisheth us in this World with Sickness Wars Fires and Famines all which the last excepted we have to our sorrow I wish I could say to our amendment in these our days experimented and that so severely that former Ages cannot parallel it Let us fear therefore and not only so but deprecate and avert Gods anger by our Repentance lest that we feel likewise the effects of those menaces which he by his Prophets in Holy Writ hath threatned us When he saith That he will make the Heavens as Brass and the Earth as Iron that is to say barren and fruitless And for this cause our Lord declaring to his Disciples the evils that should come to pass after having foretold That Nation should rise up against Nation and Kingdom against Kingdom He immediately addeth as if one depended on the other That there should be great Pestilences and Famines throughout the Regions of the Earth After Totillus had besieged Rome they of the City fell into such scarcity and want of Provision that having nothing left them they began to eat all sorts of Animals as Horses Dogs Cats Rats and Mice and all other manner of Vermin and in the end one another A thing certainly most dreadful that when the Justice of God presseth us we are reduced to such necessity that we spare not our own Kind nor the Mothers their own Children which happened likewise in the ruine of Jerusalem as Eusebius noteth in his Ecclesiastical History When Grand Scipio besieged the great City of Numantia having taken from them all means of provision they were reduced to such Extremity that they went every day to chase after the Romans as the Hunter doth after the prey and eat the Flesh and drunk the Blood of those they took as ordinarily then as at other times a quarter of Veal or Mutton and so spared none for as soon as ever he was taken he was kill'd skin'd pull'd in pieces and sold in the Shambles so that he was worth more being dead than living and Ransom'd There is mention'd in the Holy Scripture a Famine which was in Samaria in the time of Elisha which I think surpassed the precedent for there was so great a dearth and scarcity of provision that the head of an Ass was sold for four score pieces of Silver and the fourth part of the measure of Pigeons dung five pieces and when all was consum'd the Mothers eat their own Children so that a poor Woman of that City formed her Complaint to the King of Israel seeing him on the Wall That her Neighbour would not observe the Contract and Agreement betwixt them For we have saith she dressed and eaten my Son and she hides and conceals hers And when the King heard this which the Woman had said his heart had like to burst and split with sorrow and he began to rent his Garments and cloathe himself with Sackcloth Josephus in 3d ch 7 Book of the Wars of the Jews relateth a story like the precedent where he saith That there was a Rich and noble Woman when Jerusalem was besieg'd who had gâ—t together the rest of the great Riches which she had in a certain house of the City and lived frugally on that little which she had left but the Soldiers in a short time took all from her so that as soon as ever she had begged a morsel of meat for her sustenance they devour'd it so that in the end she finding her self pressed with hunger and bereaven of Victuals and Counsel she began to arm her self contrary to the Laws of Nature and looking on her little Child which she suckled and held in her Arms she thus cryed out O unhappy Infant and more unhappy Mother what shall I now do with thee 't is come to that pass that if I should save thy life thou wilt remain in the perpetual servitude of the Romans Come then my Child be thou as food unto thy Mother and terror to the Soldiers who have left me nothing and to the Ages to come a memorial of horror and pity and after she had spoke these words she kill'd it and put it on the Spit and roasted it eating the half of it and setting up the rest Immediately after she had acted this deplorable Tragedy the Soldiers returned again to her who smelling the savour of the roasted meat began to threaten her with death if she shewed them not where her food was but she being resolute in her rage and seeking nothing but how she might accompany her Son in death without being the least astonished said to them Hold your peace my Friends I have not been unjust to you having saved you exactly your part and ending these words she produced the Child on the Table at which the Soldiers were so amazed and confounded that they stood as mute and vanquish'd but she on the contrary with a furious and undaunted look said What my Friends 't is my Child 't is my doing why feed you not I am glutted already Are you more scrupulous than the Mother that bore it Disdain you the meats which I have us'd before you and will now shew you by eating the same the great distress you have drove me to But they who could not suffer or endure so piteous a spectacle fled away and left her alone with the other part of her Child which was in short all the remainder which they had left her See the History of Josephus the very place which I have the rather transcribed Verbatim for what was contained in it But because there are some who are never moved by reading Histories and ancient Examples unless they experience it in their own Age and see it with their Eyes and touch it as it were with their Fingers I would therefore now shew that our God spareth us no more than the Ancients when he 's angry with us for our sins as shall be amply manifest by the History which follows written by Paradin a man of great Industry in that which concerneth History in his Treatise of the memorable matters of our time where he saith That the Kingdom of France was so greatly afficted that it was thought that all was reduced to the last end and period For during the space of five whole years which began in 1528 the Season was in such indisposition and disorder that the four Elements left their natural courses and shewed themselves confus'd perverted and preposterous the Spring beginning in Autumn that in the Spring the Summer in Winter the Winter in Summer but above all the Summer had the dominion over the rest and quite against its nature so that in the heart of Winter viz. in December January and February when the Earth expected its repose and ripening by Frost and cold there was so great and vehement a heat
distempered that they have knocked their own heads against the wall as did a Learned man of our time called Ange Politian Some have been constrained in their sickness to eat Serpents as do those who are infected with the Leprosie From the bodies of others have issued out great number of Serpents as did out of the body of the Philosopher Pherecides Some there have been in whose bodies have been ingendred such great quantity of Lice that they have been eaten up with them CHAP. VI. Of Poysons NEither are these evils enough but Man hath invented of himself more to set forward his own death as well as his Neighbours as if those which Nature had prepared for him and were born with him were not sufficient to crush him Such are the poysons which men make now-a-days and that so dexterously that there can be no preservation from them unless men should shun all Society and betake themselves to Desarts with the brute Beasts in the company of whom he is more certain of safety than with men Some Ancient Authors as Orpheus Orus Medesius Heliodorus and Aratus have taught the Composition of five hundred sorts of Poysons and some others have since augmented the number but if they were now alive they would be reputed as dull and insiped so much is humane malice increased In former Ages they made use of certain Drugs which are of their nature so venemous that a Grain weight of them would kill a man immediately and was sold at an hundred Crowns an Ounce so great a Tribute paid he that used them yet nevertheless they had this consideration that they made him Swear who bought them that he should not use it in their Province nor against their Friends and Allies but only against strangers but men are grown in these our times so ingeniously industrious to do evil that they have found out ways to poyson men by scent only as did a certain Sienois to his Corrival presenting him with a Nosegay of Flowers the smell of which struck him dead immediately Another a Florentine Cavalier having taken off his Head-piece that he might refresh himself was espied by his Enemy who rubbed on the inside of it so deadly a poyson that as soon as ever he put it on his head made him give up the Ghost immediately They spare not in Italy so much as their Flamboies and Torches but corrupt and sophisticate them and that so artificially that the smoak of them poysoneth so that you dare scarcely light your Torches for your conduct in the night if you have suspicion of an Enemy 'T is a small matter to apply poyson to meats and drinks as in time past for men have found out means now-a-days to poyson the very Horssaddles Boots and Spurs and that which seemeth more pernicious is that some have lost their lives by shaking hands with them whose pretence was Friendship Some have been poysoned by Letters and Papers sent them which when opened there flies out such a poysonous vapour which rising upward penetrateth to the brain And so artificial are they in these Compositions that the venom killeth according to the intention of the Murderer for if he pleases the party shall live three months six month a year or longer so that death shall answer the time of the design of the Composition Moreover if they please they can so order the effects of the poyson that it shall hurt but one member at a time An experiment not much unlike to this we now speak of hath been found too true to their cost who drank of a poysoned Fountain on this-side the Rhine which caused their teeth to fall out of their heads who tasted of it but mens malice hath extended farther yet and hath given greater testimony of their execrable wickedness in that they have not stuck to mingle poyson with the blessed Sacrament CHAP. VI. Of the great Calamities which Men have suffered by the overflowing of Water WHAT remaineth more for the perfecting of Man's Misery seeing the very Elements rise up against him and are as Witnesses and Ministers of Gods vengeance for his sins what is there more necessary to Humane Life than Water seeing that neither Man Beast nor Herb can subsist without it not to reckon the Ornament and Beauty which it bringeth to the Universe it is the most ancient and mightiest of all the Elements as saith Pliny and Isidore It ruineth and layeth low the Mountains predominateth and governeth the Earth puts out the Fire turneth it self into Vapours surpasseth the Region of the Air from whence afterwards it descendeth to engender and produce all things on the Earth and yet nevertheless what Chastisements hath Antiquity experimented from the vigor of this Element when the Deluge of Water overflowed and covered the whole Earth when the Veins of the Heavens were opened that the Waters surpassed the highest Mountain by fifteen Cubits as Moses describeth it in Genesis How many times hath Egypt been drown'd by the overflowing of the River Nilus How many thousands of men have lost their Lives and been buried in the bellies of Fishes How sensible has Greece been of the fury of the Waters when the greatest part of Thessaly was drown'd all the Inhabitants expecting nothing but the entire ruin of mankind by the violence of this Element What mischief received the Romans by the overflowing of the River Tiber which swelled after such a manner that the waters mounted above the highest Towers and Pinacles of the City the Bridges were broken down their Gold Silver Corn Wine Cloth Silk Stuff Oiles Wool and other Goods to the value as was computed of two or three Millions of Gold lost and consumed above 3000 Men Women and Children were destroyed by the violence of the Flood Jasper Contaren writeth in his Book of the four Elements That in our time Valence a City of Spain lacked but little of being drowned with all its Inhabitants by the violence and before unknown eruption of Water so that if it had not been speedily succoured with Ramparts they had all undoubtedly perished CHAP. VII Of Fire and the Mischiefs which Men have receiv'd by it WHAT is there more admirable in Nature than the Fire by the benefit of which all our Meats are seasoned the Lives of many preserved the Metals Calcinated and made flexible the Iron softned macerated and vanquished the Stones which we use in the structure of our Buildings baked and hardened in the belly of the Earth by its aid and assistance and yet nevertheless how many famous Cities have been burned and reduced to Ashes the most ancient Testimony of this is in the Sacred Writings concerning Sodom and Gomorrah upon which the Lord rained Fire and Brimstone from Heaven The last Conflagration and Universal ruin of the Earth must be executed by the fury of this Element as is written by the Prophets and Apostles In the time of Lucius Marcus and Sextus Julius Consuls there broke out such a great Flame from two Mountains that all