If any physician in the mean time shall infer, Ne sutor ultra crepidam, and finde himself grieved that I have intruded into his profession, I will tell him in brief, I do not otherwise by them, than they do by us. If it be for their advantage, I know many of their sect which have taken orders, in hope of a benefice, tis a common transition, and why may not a melancholy divine, that can get nothing but by simonie, professe physick?

Drusianus an Italian (Crusianus, but corruptly, Trithemius cals him) because he was not fortunate in his practice, forsook his profession, and writ afterwards in Divinity. Marcilius Ficinus was semel & simul, a priest and a physician at once, and T. Linacer in his old age took orders. The Jesuits professe both at this time, divers of them permissu superiorum, Chirurgions, panders, bawds, and midwives, &c.

Many poor countrey-vicars for want of other means, are driven to their shifts; to turn mountebanks, quacksalvers, empiricks, and if our greedy patrons hold us to such hard conditions, as commonly they do, they will make most of us work at some trade, as Paul did, at last turn taskers, malsters, costermongers, grasiers, sel ale as some have done, or worse.

Howsoever in undertaking this task, I hope I shall commit no great error or indecorum, if all be considered aright, I can vindicate my self with Georgius Braunus, and Hieronymus Henningius, those two learned Divines, who (to borrow a line or to of mine elder brother) drawn by a natural love, the one of pictures and maps, prospectives and corographical delights, writ that ample theatre of cities; the other to the studie of genealogies, penned theatrum genealogicum. Or else I can excuse my studies with Lessius the Jesuit in like case, It is a disease of the soul, on which I am to treat, and as much appertaining to a Divine as to a physician;

and who knows not what an agreement there is betwixt these two professions? A good Divine either is or ought to be a good physician, a spiritual physician at least, as our Saviour cals himself, and was indeed, Mat. 4.23. Luke 5.18. Luke 7.8. They differ but in object, the one of the body, the other of the soul, and use divers medicines to cure: one amends animam per corpus, the other corpus per animam, as our Regius Professor of physick well informed us in a learned lecture of his not long since. One helps the vices and passions of the soul, anger, lust, desperation, pride, presumption, &c. by applying that spiritual physick; as the other use proper remedies in bodily diseases.

Now this being a common infirmity of body and soul, and such a one that hath as much need of spiritual as a corporal cure, I could not finde a fitter task to busie my self about, a more apposite theam, so necessary, so commodious, and generally concerning all sorts of men, that should so equally participate of both, and require a whole physician. A divine in this compound mixt maladie, can do little alone, a physician in some kinds of melancholy much lesse, both make an absolute cure. Alterius sic altera poscit opem.

And tis proper to them both, and I hope not unbeseeming me, who am by my profession a Divine, and by mine inclination a physician. I had Jupiter in my sixt house; I say with Beroaldus, Non sum medicus, nec medicinæ prorsus expers, in the theorick of physick I have taken some pains, not with an intent to practise, but to satisfie my self, which was a cause likewise of the first undertaking of this subject.

If these reasons do not satisfie thee good Reader, as Alexander Munificus that bountiful prelate, sometimes bishop of Lincoln, when he had built six castles, ad invidiam operis eluendam, saith Mr. Camden, to take away the envy of his work (which very words Nubrigensis hath of Roger the rich bishop of Salisbury, who in King Stephens time, built Shirburn castle, and that of Devises) to divert the scandal or imputation, which might be thence inferred, built so many religious houses: If this my discourse be over medicinal, or savor too much of humanitie, I promise thee, that I wil hereafter make thee amends in some treatise of divinity.

But this I hope shal suffice, when you have more fully considered of the matter of this my subject, rem substratam, melancholy, madnes, and of the reasons following, which were my chief motives: the generality of the disease, the necessity of the cure, and the commodity or common good that will arise to all men by the knowledg of it, as shal at large appear in the ensuing preface.

And I doubt not but that in the end you will say with me, that to anatomize this humor aright, through all the members of this our Microcosmus, is as great a task, as to reconcile those Chronologicall errors in the Assyrian monarchie, finde out the quadrature of a circle, the creeks and sounds of the north-east, or north-west passages, & all out as good a discovery as that hungry Spaniards of Terra Australis Incognita, as great trouble as to perfect the motion of Mars and Mercury, which so crucifies our Astronomers, or to rectifie the Gregorian Kalender.

I am so affected for my part, and hope as Theophrastus did by his characters, That our posterity, O friend Policles, shal be the better for this which we have written, by correcting and rectifying what is amiss in themselves by our examples, and applying our precepts and cautions to their own use. And as that great captain Zisca would have a drum made of his skin when he was dead, because he thought the very noise of it would put his enemies to flight, I doubt not but that these following lines, when they shall be recited, or hereafter read, wil drive away melancholy (though I be gone) as much as Ziscaes drum could terrifie his foes.

Yet one caution let me give by the way to my present, or future Reader, who is actually melancholy, that he reade not the symptomes or prognosticks in this following tract, lest by applying that which he reads to himself, aggravating, appropriating things generally spoken, to his own person (as melancholy men for the most part do) he trouble or hurt himself, and get in conclusion more harm then good.