Subsect. 13. Love of Gaming, &c. and pleasures immoderate; Causes.

It is a wonder to see, how many poor, distressed, miserable wretches, one shall meet almost in every path and street, begging for an almes, that have been well descended, and sometimes in flourishing estate, now ragged, tattered, and ready to be starved, lingring out a painful life, in discontent and grief of body and minde, and all through immoderate lust, gaming, pleasure and riot. ’Tis the common end of all sensual Epicures and brutish prodigals, that are stupified and carried away headlong with their severall pleasures and lusts.

Cebes in his table, S. Ambrose in his second book of Abel and Cain, and amongst the rest Lucian in his tract de Mercede conductis, hath excellent well deciphered such mens proceedings in his picture of Opulentia, whom he fains to dwell on the top of a high mount, much sought after by many suiters; at their first coming they are generally entertained by Pleasure and Dalliance, and have all the content that possibly may be given, so long as their mony lasts; but when their means fail, they are contemptibly thrust out at a back door, headlong, and there left to Shame, Reproach, Despair.

And he at first that had so many attendants, parasites, and followers, young and lusty, richly arrayd, and all the dainty fare that might be had, with all kinde of welcome and good respect, is now upon a sudden stript of all, pale, naked, old, diseased and forsaken, cursing his stars, and ready to strangle himself; having no other company but Repentance, Sorrow, Grief, Derision, Beggery, and Contempt, which are his daily attendants to his lives end. As the prodigall son had exquisite musick, merry company, dainty fare at first; but a sorrowful reckoning in the end: so have all such vain delights and their followers.

Tristes voluptatum exitus, & quisquis voluptatum suarum reminisci volet, intelliget, as bitter as gall and wormwood is their last; grief of mind, madness it self. The ordinary rocks upon which such men do impinge and precipitate themselves, are Cards, Dice, Hawkes, and Hounds, Insanum venandi studium, one cals it, insanæ substructiones: their mad structures, disports, plays, &c. when they are unseasonably used, imprudently handled, and beyond their fortunes.

Some men are consumed by mad phantastical buildings, by making Galleries, Cloisters, Tarraces, Walkes, Orchards, Gardens, Pools, Rillets, Bowers, and such like places of pleasure; Inutiles domos, Xenophon calls them, which howsoever they be delightsome things in themselves, and acceptable to all beholders, an ornament, and befitting some great men; yet unprofitable to others, and the sole overthrow of their estates. Forestus in his observations hath an example of such a one that became melancholy upon the like occasion, having consumed his substance in an unprofitable building, which would afterward yield him no advantage.

Others, I say, are overthrown by those mad sports of Hawking and hunting; honest recreations, and fit for some great men, but not for every base inferior person; whilst they will maintain their Faulkoners, dogs, and hunting Nags, their wealth, saith Salmutze, runs away with hounds, and their fortunes flie away with Hawkes: They persecute beasts so long, till in the end they themselves degenerate into beasts, as Agrippa taxeth them, Actæon like, for as he was eaten to death by his own dogs, so do they devoure themselves and their patrimonies, in such idle and unnecessary disports, neglecting in the mean time their more necessary business, and to follow their vocations.

Over-mad too sometimes are our great men in delighting and doting too much on it: When they drive poor husbandmen from their tillage, as Sarisburiensis objects, polycrat. l.1. c.4. fling down countrey Farms, and whole Townes, to make Parkes, and Forests, starving men to feed beasts, and punishing in the mean time such a man that shall molest their game more severely then him that is otherwise a common hacker, or a notorious thief. But great men are some wayes to be excused, the meaner sort have no evasion why they should not be counted mad.

Poggius the Florentine, tels a merry story to this purpose, condemning the folly and impertinent business of such kinde of persons. A physician of Millan, saith he, that cured mad men, had a pit of water in his house, in which he kept his patients, some up to the knees, some to the girdle, some to the chin, pro modo insaniæ, as they were more or less affected. One of them by chance that was well recovered, stood in the door, and seeing a gallant ride by with a Hawk on his fist, well mounted, with his Spaniels after him, would needs know to what use all this preparation served;

he made answer, to kill certain fowle: the patient demanded again, what his fowle might be worth which he killed in a year; he replyed, 5 or 10 crownes: and when he urged him farther what his Dogs, Horse, and Hawke stood him in, he told him 400 Crowns: with that the patient bad be gone, as he loved his life and welfare, for if our master come and finde thee here, he will put thee in the pit amongst mad men up to the chin: Taxing the madness and folly of such vain men that spend themselves in those idle sports, neglecting their business and necessary affaires.

Leo decimus, that hunting Pope, is much discommended by Iovius in his life, for his immoderate desire of hauking and hunting, in so much that (as he saith) he would sometimes live about Ostia weeks and months together, leave suiters unrespected, Buls and pardons unsigned, to his own prejudice, and many private mens losse.