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SUBSECT. 5. Loss of liberty, servitude, imprisonment, how they cause Melancholy.
To this Catalogue of causes, I may well annex loss of liberty, servitude, or imprisonment, which to some persons is as great a torture as any of the rest. Though they have all things convenient, sumptuous houses to their use, fair walks and gardens, delicious bowers, galleries, good fear and diet, & all things correspondent: yet they are not content, because they are confined, may not come and go at their pleasure, have, and do what they will, but live aliena quadra, at another mans table and command.
As it is in meats so is it in all other things, places, societies, sports; let them be never so pleasant, commodious, wholesome, so good; yet omnium rerum est satietas, there is a loathing satiety of all things. The children of Israel were tired with Manna, it is irksome to them so to live, as to a bird in a cage, or a dog in his kennel, they are weary of it.
They are happy, it is true, and have all things, to another mans judgment, that heart can wish, or that they themselves can desire, bona si sua norint: yet they loath it, and are tired with the present: Est natura hominum novitatis avida; mens nature is still desirous of news, variety, delights; and our wandring affections are so irregular in this kinde, that they must change, though it be to the worst.
Batchelors must be married, and married men would be Batchelors; they do not love their own wives, though otherwise fair, wise, vertuous, and well qualified, because they are theirs; our present estate is still the worst, we cannot endure one course of life long, & quod modò voverat, odit, one calling long, esse in honore juvat, mox displicet; one place long, Romæ Tybur amo, ventosus Tybure Romam, that which we earnestly sought, we now contemn.
Hoc quosdam agit ad mortem (saith Seneca) quod proposita sæpe mutando in eadem revolvuntur, & non relinquunt novitati locum: Fastidio cæpit esse vita, & ipsus mundus, & subit illud rapidissimarum deliciarum, Quousque eadem?
this alone kils many a man, that they are tied to the same still, as a horse in a mill, a dog in a wheele, they run round, without alteration or news, their life groweth odious, the world loathsome, and that which crosseth their furious delights. What? still the same? Marcus Aurelius and Solomon, that had experience of all worldly delights and pleasure, confessed as much of themselves; what they most desired, was tedious at last, and that their lust could never be satisfied, all was vanity and affliction of minde.
Now if it be death it self, another Hell, to be glutted with one kind of sport, dieted with one dish, tied to one place; though they have all things otherwise as they can desire, and are in Heaven to another mans opinion, what misery & discontent shall they have, that live in slavery, or in prison it self? Quod tristius morte, in servitute vivendum, as Hermolaus told Alexander in Curtius, worse then death is bondage: hoc animo scito omnes fortes, ut mortem servituti anteponant, All brave men at arms (Tully holdes) are so affected. Equidem ego is sum, qui servitutem extremum omnium malorum esse arbitror: I am he (saith Boterus) that accompt servitude, the extremity of misery.
And what calamity do they endure, that live with those hard taskmasters, in gold mines, (like those 30000 Indian slaves at Potosa in Peru) tin-mines, lead-mines, stone-quarries, cole-pits, like so many mouldwarps under ground, condemned to the gallies, to perpetuall drudgery, hunger, thirst, and stripes, without all hope of delivery?
How are those women in Turkie affected, that most part of the year come not abroad; those Italian and Spanish Dames, that are mewed up like Hawks, and lockt up by their jealous husbands? how tedious is it to them that live in Stoves and Caves half a year together? as in Island, Muscovy, or under the Pole it self, where they have six moneths perpetuall night.
Nay, what misery and discontent do they endure, that are in prison? They want all those six non-naturall things at once, good ayr, good dyet, exercise, company, sleep, rest, ease, &c. that are bound in chains all day long, suffer hunger, and (as Lucian describes it) must abide that filthy stink, and ratling of chains, howlings, pitifull out-cryes, that prisoners usually make: these things are not only troublesome, but intolerable.
They lie nastily amongst toads and frogs in a dark dungeon, in their own dung, in pain of body, in pain of soul, as Joseph did, Psal. 105.18. They hurt his feet in the stocks, the iron entred his soul. They live solitary, alone, sequestred from all company but heart-eating melancholy, and for want of meat, must eat that bread of affliction, prey upon themselves.
Well might Arculanus put long imprisonment for a cause, especially to such as have lived jovially, in all sensuality and lust, upon a sudden are estranged and debarred from all manner of pleasures: as were Huniades, Edward, and Richard the second, Valerian the Emperour, Bajazet the Turk.
If it be irksome to miss our ordinary companions & repast for once a day, or an hour, what shall it be to lose them for ever? If it be so great a delight to live at liberty, and to enjoy that variety of objects the world affords; what misery and discontent must it needs bring to him, that shall now be cast headlong into that Spanish Inquisition, to fall from Heaven to Hell, to be cubbed up upon a sudden, how shall he be perplexed, what shall become of him?
Robert Duke of Normandy, being imprisoned by his youngest brother Henry the first, ab illa die inconsolabili dolore in carcere contabuit, saith Matthew Paris: from that day forward, pined away with grief. Jugurth that generous Captain, brought to Rome in triumph, and after imprisoned, through anguish of his soul, and melancholy, dyed.
Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, the second man from King Stephen, (he that built that famous Castle of Devices in Wiltshire) was so tortured in prison with hunger, and all those calamities accompanying such men, ut vivere noluerit, mori nescierit, he would not live, and could not die, betwixt fear of death, and torments of life. Francis King of France was taken prisoner by Charls the fifth, ad mortem fere melancholicus, saith Guicciardine, melancholy almost to death, and that in an instant. But this is as clear as the Sun, and needs no further illustration.