PDF format (1.55 Mb) - The Ex-Classics Web Site
PDF format (1.55 Mb) - The Ex-Classics Web Site
PDF format (1.55 Mb) - The Ex-Classics Web Site
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THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY<br />
empyrean heaven: for some say the eccentricity of the sun is come nearer to the earth than in<br />
Ptolemy's time, the virtue therefore of all the vegetals is decayed, men grow less, &c. <strong>The</strong>re are<br />
that observe new motions of the heavens, new stars, palantia sidera, comets, clouds, call them<br />
what you will, like those Medicean, Burbonian, Austrian planets, lately detected, which do not<br />
decay, but come and go, rise higher and lower, hide and show themselves amongst the fixed<br />
stars, amongst the planets, above and beneath the moon, at set times, now nearer, now farther off,<br />
together, asunder; as he that plays upon a sackbut by pulling it up and down alters his tones and<br />
tunes, do they their stations and places, though to us undiscerned; and from those motions<br />
proceed (as they conceive) diverse alterations. Clavius conjectures otherwise, but they be but<br />
conjectures. About Damascus in Coeli-Syria is a Paradise, by reason of the plenty of waters, in<br />
promptu causa est, and the deserts of Arabia barren, because of rocks, rolling seas of sands, and<br />
dry mountains quod inaquosa (saith Adricomius) montes habens asperos, saxosos, præcipites,<br />
horroris et mortis speciem præ se ferentes, "uninhabitable therefore of men, birds, beasts, void of<br />
all green trees, plants, and fruits, a vast rocky horrid wilderness, which by no art can be manured,<br />
'tis evident." Bohemia is cold, for that it lies all along to the north. But why should it be so hot in<br />
Egypt, or there never rain? Why should those etesian and northeastern winds blow continually<br />
and constantly so long together, in some places, at set times, one way still, in the dog-days only:<br />
here perpetual drought, there dropping showers; here foggy mists, there a pleasant air; here<br />
terrible thunder and lightning at such set seasons, here frozen seas all the year, there open in the<br />
same latitude, to the rest no such thing, nay quite opposite is to be found? Sometimes (as in Peru)<br />
on the one side of the mountains it is hot, on the other cold, here snow, there wind, with infinite<br />
such. Fromundus in his Meteors will excuse or solve all this by the sun's motion, but when there<br />
is such diversity to such as Periœci or very near site, how can that position hold?<br />
Who can give a reason of this diversity of meteors, that it should rain stones, frogs, mice,<br />
&c. rats, which they call Lemmer in Norway, and are manifestly observed (as Munster writes) by<br />
the inhabitants, to descend and fall with some feculent showers, and like so many locusts,<br />
consume all that is green. Leo Afer speaks as much of locusts, about Fez in Barbary there be<br />
infinite swarms in their fields upon a sudden: so at Aries in France, 1553, the like happened by<br />
the same mischief, all their grass and fruits were devoured, magna incolarum admiratione et<br />
consternatione (as Valleriola obser. med. lib. 1. obser. 1. relates) cœlum subito obumbrabant,<br />
&c. he concludes, it could not be from natural causes, they cannot imagine whence they come,<br />
but from heaven. Are these and such creatures, corn, wood, stones, worms, wool, blood, &c.<br />
lifted up into the middle region by the sunbeams, as Baracellus the physician disputes, and<br />
thence let fall with showers, or there engendered? Cornelius Gemma is of that opinion, they are<br />
there conceived by celestial influences: others suppose they are immediately from God, or<br />
prodigies raised by art and illusions of spirits, which are princes of the air; to whom Bodin. lib. 2.<br />
<strong>The</strong>at. Nat. subscribes. In fine, of meteors in general, Aristotle's reasons are exploded by<br />
Bernardinus Telesius, by Paracelsus his principles confuted, and other causes assigned, sal,<br />
sulphur, mercury, in which his disciples are so expert, that they can alter elements, and separate<br />
at their pleasure, make perpetual motions, not as Cardan, Tasneir, Peregrinus, by some<br />
magnetical virtue, but by mixture of elements; imitate thunder, like Salmoneus, snow, hail, the<br />
sea's ebbing and flowing, give life to creatures (as they say) without generation, and what not? P.<br />
Nonius Saluciensis and Kepler take upon them to demonstrate that no meteors, clouds, fogs,<br />
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