or if a drunken man get a childe, it will never likely have a good brain, as Gellius argues, lib. 12. cap. 1. Ebrii gignunt Ebrios, one drunkard begets another, saith Plutarch, symp. lib. 1. quest. 5. whose sentence Lemnius approves, l. 1. c. 4. Alsarius Crutius Gen. de qui sit med. cent. 3. fol. 182. Macrobius lib. 1. Avicenna lib. 3. Fen. 21. Tract. 1. cap. 8 and Aristotle himself sect. 2. prob. 4.

foolish, drunken, or hair-brain women, most part bring forth children like unto themselves, morosos & languidos, and so likewise he that lies with a menstruous woman.

Intemperantia veneris, quam in nautis præsertim insectatur Lemnius, qui uxores ineunt, nulla menstrui decursus ratione habita, nec observato interlunio, præcipua causa est, noxia, pernitiosa, concubitum hunc exitialem ideò, & pestiferum vocat. Rodoricus à Castro Lusitanus, detestantur ad unum omnes medici,

tum & quartâ lunâ concepti, infelices plerunque & amentes, deliri, stolidi, morbosi, impuri, invalidi, tetrâ lue sordidi, minimè vitales, omnibus bonis corporis atque animi destituti: ad laborem nati, si seniores, inquit Eustathius, ut Hercules, & alii.

Judæi maximè insectantur fœdum hunc & immundum apud Christianos Concubitum, ut illicitum abhorrent, & apud suos prohibent; & quod Christiani toties leprosi, amentes, tot morbidi, impetigines, alphi, psoræ, cutis & faciei decolorationes, tam multi morbi Epidemici, acerbi, & venenosi sint, in hunc immundum concubitum rejiciunt, & crudeles in pignora vocant, qui quartâ lunâ profluente hac mensium illuvie concubitum hunc non perhorrescunt.

Damnavit olim divina Lex, & morte mulctavit hujusmodi homines, Lev. 18. 20. & inde nati, siqui deformes aut mutili, pater dilapidatus, quod non contineret ab immunda muliere.

Gregorius Magnus, petenti Augustino nunquid apud Britannos hujusmodi concubitum toleraret, severe prohibuit viris suis tum misceri fæminas in consuetis suis menstruis, &c. I spare to English this which I have said.

Another cause some give, inordinate Diet, as if a man eat Garlick, Onyons, fast overmuch, study too hard, be over-sorrowful, dull, heavy, dejected in minde, perplexed in his thoughts, fearful, &c. their children (saith Cardan subtil. lib. 18.) will be much subject to madness and melancholy:

for if the spirits of the brain be fusted, or mis-affected by such meanes, at such a time, their children will be fusted in the brain; they will be dull, heavy, timerous, discontented all their lives.

Some are of opinion and maintain that paradox, or problem, that wise men beget commonly fools; Suidas gives instance in Aristarchus the Grammarian, duos reliquit filios Aristarchum & Aristachorum, ambos stultos, and which Erasmus urgeth in his Moria, fools beget wise men.

Card. subt. l. 12. gives this cause, Quoniam spiritus sapientum ob studium resolvuntur, & in cerebrum feruntur à corde: because their natural spirits are resolved by study, and turned into animal; drawn from the heart, and those other parts to the brain,

Lemnius subscribes to that of Cardan, and assignes this reason, Quod persolvant debitum languide & obscitanter, unde fœtus à parentum generositate desciscit: they pay their debt (as Paul cals it) to their wives remissely, by which meanes their Children are weaklings, and many times ideots and fooles.

Some other causes are given, which properly pertain, and do proceed from the mother: If she be over-dul, heavy, angry, peevish, discontented, and melancholy, not only at the time of conception, but even all the while she carries the childe in her wombe (saith Fernelius path. l. 1. 11.) her son wil be so likewise affected, and worse, as Lemnius adds, l. 4. c. 7.

if she grieve overmuch, be disquieted, or by any casualty be affrighted and terrified by some fearful object, heard or seen, she endangers her childe, and spoiles the temperature of it; for the strange imagination of a woman, workes effectually upon her infant, that as Baptista Porta proves Physiog. cœlestis l. 5. c. 2. she leaves a mark upon it, which is most especially seen in such as prodigiously long for such & such meats, the childe wil love those meates, saith Fernelius, and be addicted to like humors:

If a great-bellied woman see a Hare, her Childe will often have an Harelip, as we call it. Garcæus de Judiciis geniturarum cap. 33. hath a memorable example of one Thomas Nickell borne in the City of Brandeburge, 1551. that went reeling and staggering all the dayes of his life, as if he would fall to the ground, because his mother being great with childe saw a drunken man reeling in the street.

Such an other I finde in Martin Wenrichius com: de ortu monstrorum c. 17. I saw (saith he) at Wittenberge in Germany, a Citizen that looked like a carkass; I asked him the cause, he replyed, His Mother when she bore him in her wombe, saw a carkasse by chance, and was so sore affrighted with it, that ex eo fœtus ei assimilatus, from a ghastly impression the childe was like it.

So many several wayes are we plagued and punished for our fathers defaults; in so much that as Fernelius truly saith, It it is the greatest part of our felicity to be wel-born, and it were happy for humane kinde, if only such parents as are sound of body and minde, should be suffered to marry.

An husbandman wil sow none but the best & choisest seed upon his land, he wil not rear a Bull or an Horse, except he be right shapen in all parts, or permit him to cover a Mare, except he be well assured of his breed; we make choice of the best Rams for our sheep, reare the neatest Kine, and keep the best dogs. Quanto id diligentius in procreandis liberis observandum? And how careful then should we be in begetting of our children?

In former times some Countries have been so chary in this behalf, so stern, that if a childe were crooked or deformed in body or minde, they made him away; so did the Indians of old by the relation of Curtius, & many other wel-governed commonwealths, according to the discipline of those times.

Heretofore in Scotland, saith Hect. Boethius, if any were visited with the falling sicknesse, madnesse, gout, leprosie, or any such dangerous disease, which was likely to be propagated from the father to the son, he was instantly gelded; a woman kept from all company of men; and if by chance having some such disease, she were found to be with childe, she with her brood were buried alive: And this was done for the common good, lest the whole Nation should be injured or corrupted.

A severe doom you will say, and not to be used amongst Christians, yet more to be looked into then it is. For now by our too much facility in this kinde, in giving way for all to marry that will, too much liberty and indulgence in tolerating all sorts, there is a vast confusion of hereditary diseases, no family secure, no man almost free from some grievous infirmity or other,

when no choice is had, but still the eldest must marry, as so many stallions of the race, or if rich, be they fools or dizzards, lame or maimed, unable, intemperate, dissolute, exhaust through riot, as he said, jure hæreditario sapere jubentur; they must be wise and able by inheritance:

It comes to pass that our generation is corrupt, we have many weak persons, both in body and minde, many feral diseases raging amongst us, crased families, parentes, peremptores; our fathers bad, and we are like to be worse.