I did sometime laugh and scoff with Lucian, and satyrically tax with Menippus, lament with Heraclitus, sometimes again I was petulanti splene chachinno, and then again, urere bilis jecur, I was much moved to see that abuse which I could not amend.

In which passion howsoever I may sympathize with him or them, tis for no such respect I shroud my self under his name, but either in an unknown habit, to assume a little more liberty and freedom of speech, or if you will needs know; for that reason and only respect, which Hippocrates relates at large in his Epistle to Damegetus, wherein he doth expresse, how coming to visit him one day, he found Democritus in his garden at Abdera, in the suburbs, under a shady bower, with a book on his knees, busie at his study, sometimes writing, sometime walking.

The subject of his book was melancholy and madnes, about him lay the carcasses of many several beasts, newly by him cut up and anatomized, not that he did contemn Gods creatures, as he told Hippocrates, but to finde out the seat of this atra bilis, or melancholy, whence it proceeds, and how it was engendred in mens bodies, to the intent he might the better cure it in himself, by his writings and observations teach others how to prevent and avoid it.

Which good intent of his, Hippocrates highly commended: Democritus junior is therfore bold to imitate, & because he left it unperfect, & it is now lost, quasi succenturiator Democriti, to revive again, prosecute and finish in this treatise.

You have had a reason of the name; If the title and inscription offend your gravity, were it a sufficient justification to accuse others, I could produce many sober treatises, even sermons themselves, which in their fronts carry more phantastical names. Howsoever it is a kinde of policie in these daies, to prefix a phantastical title to a book which is to be sold:

For as Larks come down to a day-net, many vain readers will tarry and stand gazing like silly passengers, at an antick picture in a painters shop, that will not look at a judicious peece. And indeed as Scaliger observes, nothing more invites a reader then an argument unlooked for, unthought of, and sels better than a scurrile pamphlet, tum maxime cum novitas excitat palatum.

Many men, saith Gellius, are very conceited in their inscriptions, and able (as Plinie quotes out of Seneca) to make him loyter by the way, that went in hast to fetch a mid-wife for his daughter, now ready to lie down. For my part I have honorable presidents for this which I have done: I will cite one for all, Anthonie Zara Pap. Episc. his Anatomie of wit, in four sections, members, subsections, &c. to be read in our Libraries.

If any man except against the matter or manner of treating of this my subject, and will demand a reason of it, I can alleage more then one, I write of melancholy, by being busie to avoid melancholy. There is no greater cause of melancholy then idlenesse, no better cure then businesse, as Rhasis holds:

and howbeit, stultus labor est ineptiarum, to be busied in toyes is to small purpose, yet hear that divine Seneca, better aliud agere quam nihil, better do to no end than nothing. I writ therefore, and busied my self in this playing labour, otiosaq; diligentiâ ut vitarem torporem feriandi with Vectius in Macrobius, atq; otium in utile verterem negotium. Simul & jucunda & idonea dicere vitæ, Lectorem delectando simul atque monendo.

To this end I write, like them, saith Lucian, that recite to trees, and declaim to pillars for want of auditors: as Paulus Ægineta ingeniously confesseth, not that any thing was unknown or omitted, but to exercise my self, which course if some took, I think it would be good for their bodies, and much better for their souls; or peradventure as others do, for fame, to shew my self (Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter.)

I might be of Thucydidis opinion, to know a thing and not to expresse it, is all one as if he knew it not. When I first took this task in hand, & quod ait ille, impellente genio negotium suscepi, this I aimed at; vel ut lenirem animum scribendo, to ease my minde by writing, for I had gravidum cor, fætum caput, a kind of impostume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of, and could imagin no fitter evacuation then this.