Omnes se terrent auræ, sonus excitat omnis.

Another through bashfulnesse, suspicion & timorousnesse will not be seen abroad, loves darknesse as life, and cannot endure the light, or to sit in lightsome places, his hat still in his eyes, he will neither see, nor be seen by his good will, Hippocrates lib. de Insania & Melancholia.

He dare not come in company for fear he should be misused, disgraced, overshoot himself in gesture or speeches, or be sick; he thinks every man observes him, aims at him, derides him, owes him malice. Most part they are afraid they are bewitched, possessed, or poysoned by their enemies, and sometimes they suspect their neerest friends: he thinks something speaks or talks within him, or to him, and he belcheth of the poyson.

Cristopherus à Vega lib. 2. cap. 1. had a patient so troubled, that by no perswasion or physick, he could be reclaimed. Some are afraid that they shall have every fearfull disease they see others have, hear of, or read, & dare not therefore hear or read of any such subject, no not of melancholy it self, lest by applying to themselves that which they hear or read, they should aggravate & increase it.

If they see one possessed, bewitched, an Epileptick Paroxysme, a man shaking with the palsie, or giddy headed, reeling or standing in a dangerous place, &c. for many dayes after it runs in their minds, they are afraid they shall be so too, they are in like danger, as Perk. c. 12. se. 2. wel observes in his Cases of Consc. and many times by violence of imagination they produce it.

They cannot endure to see any terrible object, as a Monster, a man executed, a carcase, hear the devil named, or any tragicall relation seen, but they quake for fear, Hecatas somniare sibi videntur (Lucian) they dream of Hobgoblins, and may not get it out of their minds a long time after:

they apply (as I have said) all they hear, see, read, to themselves; as Felix Plater notes of some young Physicians, that study to cure diseases, catch them themselves, will be sick, and appropriate all symptomes they finde related of others, to their own persons.

And therefore (quod iterum moneo, licet nauseam paret lectori, malo decem potius verba, decies repetita licet, abundare, quam unum desiderari) I would advise him, that is actually melancholy, not to read this tract of Symptomes, lest he disquiet or make himself for a time worse, and more melancholy then he was before.

Generally, of them all take this, de inanibus semper conqueruntur, & timent, saith Aretius, they complain of toyes, & fear without a cause, and still think their melancholy to be most grievous, none so bad as they are, though it be nothing in respect, yet never any man sure was so troubled, or in this sort.

As really tormented and perplexed in as great an agony for toyes and trifles (such things as they will after laugh at themselves) as if they were most materiall and essentiall matters indeed, worthy to be feared, and will not be satisfied. Pacifie them for one, they are instantly troubled with some other fear; alwayes afraid of something, which they foolishly imagine or conceive to themselves, which never peradventure was, never can be, never likely will be;

troubled in minde upon every small occasion, unquiet, still complaining, grieving, vexing, suspecting, grudging, discontent, & cannot be freed so long as melancholy continues. Or if their minds be more quiet for the present, and they free from forrain fears, outward accidents, yet their bodies are out of tune, they suspect some part or other to be amiss, now their head akes, heart, stomack, splen, &c. is misaffected, they shall surely have this or that disease;

still troubled in body, minde, or both; and through winde, corrupt phantasie, some accidentall distemper, continually molested. Yet for all this as Jacchinus notes, in all other things they are wise, staid, discreet, and do nothing unbeseeming their dignity, person, or place, this foolish, ridiculous, and childish fear excepted;

which so much, so continually tortures and crucifies their souls, like a barking dog that alwayes bawls, but seldome bites, this fear ever molesteth, and so long as melancholy lasteth, cannot be avoided.

Sorrow is the other Character, and inseparable companion, as individuall as Saint Cosmus and Damian, fidus Achates, as all writers witness, a common symptome, a continuall, and still without any evident cause, mærent omnes, & si roges eos reddere causam, non possunt: grieving still, but why they cannot tell: Agelasti, mæsti, cogitabundi, they look as if they had newly come forth of Trophonius den.

And though they laugh many times, and seem to be extraordinary merry (as they will by fits) yet extream lumpish again in an instant, dull, and heavy, semel & simul, merry and sad, but most part sad: Si qua placent, abeunt; inimica tenacius hærent: sorrow sticks by them still continually, gnawing as the vulture did Titius bowels, & they cannot avoid it.

No sooner are their eyes open, but after terrible & troublesome dreams their heavy hearts began to sigh: they are still fretting, chafing, sighing, grieving, complaining, finding faults, repining, grudging, weeping, Heautontimorumenoi, vexing themselves, disquieted in minde, with restless, unquiet thoughts, discontent, either for their own, other mens, or publike affaires, such as concerne them not, things past, present or to come, the remembrance of some disgrace, loss, injury, abuse, &c. troubles them now being idle afresh, as if it were new done;

they are afflicted otherwise for some danger, loss, want, shame, misery, that will certainly come, as they suspect and mistrust. Lugubris Ate frowns upon them, insomuch that Areteus well calls it, angorem animi, a vexation of the minde, a perpetual agony. They can hardly be pleased, or eased, though in other mens opinion most happy, go, tarry, run, ride,

——post equitem sedet atra cura: