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THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY
empyrean heaven: for some say the eccentricity of the sun is come nearer to the earth than in
Ptolemy's time, the virtue therefore of all the vegetals is decayed, men grow less, &c. There are
that observe new motions of the heavens, new stars, palantia sidera, comets, clouds, call them
what you will, like those Medicean, Burbonian, Austrian planets, lately detected, which do not
decay, but come and go, rise higher and lower, hide and show themselves amongst the fixed
stars, amongst the planets, above and beneath the moon, at set times, now nearer, now farther off,
together, asunder; as he that plays upon a sackbut by pulling it up and down alters his tones and
tunes, do they their stations and places, though to us undiscerned; and from those motions
proceed (as they conceive) diverse alterations. Clavius conjectures otherwise, but they be but
conjectures. About Damascus in Coeli-Syria is a Paradise, by reason of the plenty of waters, in
promptu causa est, and the deserts of Arabia barren, because of rocks, rolling seas of sands, and
dry mountains quod inaquosa (saith Adricomius) montes habens asperos, saxosos, præcipites,
horroris et mortis speciem præ se ferentes, "uninhabitable therefore of men, birds, beasts, void of
all green trees, plants, and fruits, a vast rocky horrid wilderness, which by no art can be manured,
'tis evident." Bohemia is cold, for that it lies all along to the north. But why should it be so hot in
Egypt, or there never rain? Why should those etesian and northeastern winds blow continually
and constantly so long together, in some places, at set times, one way still, in the dog-days only:
here perpetual drought, there dropping showers; here foggy mists, there a pleasant air; here
terrible thunder and lightning at such set seasons, here frozen seas all the year, there open in the
same latitude, to the rest no such thing, nay quite opposite is to be found? Sometimes (as in Peru)
on the one side of the mountains it is hot, on the other cold, here snow, there wind, with infinite
such. Fromundus in his Meteors will excuse or solve all this by the sun's motion, but when there
is such diversity to such as Periœci or very near site, how can that position hold?
Who can give a reason of this diversity of meteors, that it should rain stones, frogs, mice,
&c. rats, which they call Lemmer in Norway, and are manifestly observed (as Munster writes) by
the inhabitants, to descend and fall with some feculent showers, and like so many locusts,
consume all that is green. Leo Afer speaks as much of locusts, about Fez in Barbary there be
infinite swarms in their fields upon a sudden: so at Aries in France, 1553, the like happened by
the same mischief, all their grass and fruits were devoured, magna incolarum admiratione et
consternatione (as Valleriola obser. med. lib. 1. obser. 1. relates) cœlum subito obumbrabant,
&c. he concludes, it could not be from natural causes, they cannot imagine whence they come,
but from heaven. Are these and such creatures, corn, wood, stones, worms, wool, blood, &c.
lifted up into the middle region by the sunbeams, as Baracellus the physician disputes, and
thence let fall with showers, or there engendered? Cornelius Gemma is of that opinion, they are
there conceived by celestial influences: others suppose they are immediately from God, or
prodigies raised by art and illusions of spirits, which are princes of the air; to whom Bodin. lib. 2.
Theat. Nat. subscribes. In fine, of meteors in general, Aristotle's reasons are exploded by
Bernardinus Telesius, by Paracelsus his principles confuted, and other causes assigned, sal,
sulphur, mercury, in which his disciples are so expert, that they can alter elements, and separate
at their pleasure, make perpetual motions, not as Cardan, Tasneir, Peregrinus, by some
magnetical virtue, but by mixture of elements; imitate thunder, like Salmoneus, snow, hail, the
sea's ebbing and flowing, give life to creatures (as they say) without generation, and what not? P.
Nonius Saluciensis and Kepler take upon them to demonstrate that no meteors, clouds, fogs,
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