SUBSECT. 3. Particular Symptomes from the influence of Stars, parts of the body, & humors.

Some men have peculiar Symptomes, according to their temperament and Crasis, which they had from the Starres and those celestiall influences, variety of wits and dispositions, as Anthony Zara contends, Anat. ingen. sect. 1. memb. 11, 12, 13, 14. plurimum irritant influentiæ cælestes, unde cientur animi ægritudines & morbi corporum. One saith, diverse diseases of the body and minde proceed from their influences, as I have already proved out of Ptolomy, Pontanus, Lemnius, Cardan, and others, as they are principall significators of manners, diseases, mutually irradiated, or Lords of the geniture, &c.

Ptolomeus in his centiloquie, Hermes, or whosoever else the author of that tract, attributes all these symptomes, which are in melancholy men, to celestial influences: which opinion Mercurialis de affect. lib. 1. cap. 10. rejects; but as I say, Iovianus Pontanus, and others stiffly defend. That some are solitary, dull, heavy, churlish; some again blith, buxome, light, and merry, they ascribe wholly to the Stars.

As if Saturn be predominant in his nativity, and cause melancholy in his temperature, then he shall be very austere, sullen, churlish, black of colour, profound in his cogitations, ful of cares, miseries, and discontents, sad and fearfull, alwaies silent, solitary, still delighting in husbandry, in Woods, Orchards, Gardens, Rivers, Ponds, Pooles, darke Walks and close: Cogitationes sunt velle ædificare, velle arbores plantare, agros colere, &c. To catch Birds, Fishes, &c. still contriving and musing of such matters.

If Jupiter domineers, they are more ambitious, still meditating of Kingdomes, Magistracies, Offices, Honours, or that they are Princes, Potentates, and how they would carry themselves, &c. If Mars, they are all for wars, brave combats, Monomachies, testy, cholerick, harebrain, rash, furious, and violent in their actions. They will fain themselves Victors, Commanders, are passionate & satyricall in their speeches, great braggers, ruddy of colour. And though they be poor in shew, vile and base, yet like Telephus and Peleus in the Poet,

Ampullas jactant & sesquipedalia verba,

their mouthes are full of Myriades, and tetrarchs at their tongues end. If the Sun, they will be Lords, Emperors, in conceipt at least, and Monarchs, give Offices, Honors, &c. If Venus they are still courting of their mistresses, and most apt to love, amorously given, they seem to hear musick, plaies, see fine pictures, dancers, merriments, and the like. Ever in love, and dote on all they see.

Mercurialists are solitary, much in contemplation, subtile, Poets, Philosophers, and musing most part about such matters. If the Moon have a hand, they are all for peregrinations, sea-voyages, much affected with travels, to discourse, read, meditate of such things; wandring in their thoughts, divers, much delighting in waters, to fish, fowl, &c.

But the most immediate symptomes proceed from the Temperature it self, and the Organicall parts, as Head, Liver, Spleen, Meseraick veines, Heart, Womb, Stomack, &c. and most especially from distemperature of Spirits (which as Hercules de Saxonia contends, are wholy immaterial) or from the four humors in those seats, whether they be hot or cold, natural, unnatural, innate or adventitious, intended or remitted, simple or mixt,

their diverse mixtures, and severall additions, combinations, which may be as diversly varied, as those four first qualities in Clavius, and produce as many severall Symptomes and monstrous fictions as wine doth effects, which as Andreas Bachius observes, lib. 3. de vino, cap. 20. are infinite. Of greater note be these.

If it be natural Melancholy, as Lod. Mercatus lib. 1. cap. 17. de melan. T. Bright c. 16. hath largely described, either of the Spleen, or of the veins, faulty by excess of quantity, or thickness of substance, it is a cold and dry humor, as Montanus affirmes consil. 26. the parties are sad, timorous & fearful. Prosper Calenus in his book de atra bile, will have them to be more stupid then ordinary, cold, heavie, dull, solitary, sluggish, Si multam atram bilem & frigidam habent: Hercules de Saxonia c. 19. l. 7. holds these that are naturally melancholy, to be of a leaden colour or black, and so doth Guianerius c. 3. tract. 15. and such as think themselves dead many times, or that they see, talk with black men, dead men, spirits and goblins frequently, if it be in excess.

These Symptomes vary according to the mixture of those four humors adust, which is unnatural melancholy. For as Trallianus hath written cap. 16. l. 7. There is not one cause of this melancholy, nor one humor which begets it, but divers diversly intermixt, from whence proceeds this variety of Symptomes: And those varying again as they are hot or cold, Cold melancholy (saith Benedic. Vittorius Faventinus pract. mag.) is a cause of dotage, and more mild Symptomes, if hot or more adust, of more violent passions, and furies.

Fracastorius l. 2. de intellect. will have us to consider well of it, with what kinde of Melancholy every one is troubled, for it much availes to know it; one is inraged by fervent heat, another is possessed by sad and cold; one is fearful, shamefast; the other impudent and bold; As Ajax, Arma rapit superosque furens in prælia poscit: quite mad or tending to madnesse: Nunc hos, nunc impetit illos. Bellerophon on the other side, solis errat malè sanus in agris, wanders alone in the woods; one despairs, weeps and is weary of his life, another laughs, &c.