SUBSECT. 4. Symptomes from Education, custome, continuance of time, our condition, mixt with other diseases, by fits, inclination, &c.

Another great occasion of the varietie of these symptomes, proceeds from custom, discipline, education, and severall inclinations, This humour will imprint in melancholy men the objects most answerable to their condition of life, and ordinary actions, and dispose men according to their severall studies and callings.

If an ambitious man become melancholy, he forthwith thinkes he is a King, an Emperour, a Monarch, and walkes alone, pleasing himself with a vain hope of some future preferment, or present as he supposeth, and withall acts a Lords part, takes upon him to be some statesman or magnifico, makes congies, gives entertainment, looks big, &c. Francisco Sansovino records of a melancholy man in Cremona, that would not be induced to beleeve, but that he was Pope, gave pardons, made Cardinals, &c. Christophorus à Vega makes mention of another of his acquaintance, that thought he was a King, driven from his Kingdome, and was very anxious to recover his estate.

A covetous person is still conversant about purchasing of lands and tenements, plotting in his mind how to compasse such and such Manors, as if he were already Lord of, and able to go through with it; all he sees is his, re or spe, he hath devoured it in hope, or else in conceit esteems it his own; like him in Athenæus, that thought all the ships in the haven to be his own.

A lascivious innamorato plots all the day long to please his mistresse, acts and struts, and carries himself, as if she were in presence, still dreaming of her, as Pamphilus of his Glycerium, or as some do in their morning sleep. Marcellus Donatus knew such a Gentlewoman in Mantua, called Elionora Meliorina, that constantly beleeved she was married to a King, and would kneel down and talk with him, as if he had been there present with his associates; and if she had found by chance a piece of glass in a muck-hill or in the street, she would say that it was a jewell sent from her Lord and husband.

If devout and religious, he is all for fasting, prayer, ceremonies, almes, interpretations, visions, prophecies, revelations, he is inspired by the holy Ghost, full of the spirit: one while he is saved, another while damned, or still troubled in minde for his sinnes, the divell will surely have him, &c. more of these in the third Partition of love-Melancholy.

A Scholars minde is busied about his studies, he applaudes himself for that he hath done, or hopes to do, one while fearing to be out in his next exercise, another while contemning all censures, envies one, emulates another; or else with indefatigable paines and meditation, consumes himself. So of the rest, all which vary according to the more remiss, and violent impression of the object, or as the humor it self is intended or remitted.

For some are so gently melancholy, that in all their carriage, and to the outward apprehension of others, it can hardly be discerned, yet to them an intolerable burden, and not to be endured. Quædam occulta, quædam manifesta, some signes are manifest and obvious to all at all times, some to few, or seldome, or hardly perceived; let them keep their own counsell, none will take notice or suspect them.

They doe not expresse in outward shew their depraved imaginations, as Hercules de Saxonia observes, but conceal them wholly to themselves, and are very wise men, as I have often seen: some fear, some doe not fear at all, as such as think themselves kings or dead, some have more signs, some fewer, some great, some less, some vex, fret, still fear, grieve, lament, suspect, laugh, sing, weep, chafe, &c. by fits (as I have said) or more during and permanent. Some dote in one thing, are most childish, and ridiculous, and to be wondred at in that, and yet for all other matters, most discreet and wise.

To some it is in disposition, to another in habit; and as they write of heat and cold, we may say of this humour, one is melancholicus ad octo, a second two degrees less, a third half way. ’Tis super-particular, sesquialtera, sesquitertia, and superbipartiens tertias, quintas Melancholiæ, &c. all those Geometricall proportions are too little to expresse it.

It comes to many by fits, and goes; to others it is continuate: many (saith Faventinus) in Spring and fall only are molested, some once a year, as that Roman Galen speaks of: one, at the conjunction of the Moon alone, or some unfortunate aspects, at such and such set hours and times, like the sea-tides, to some women when they be with child, as Plater notes, never otherwise: to others ’tis settled and fixed: to one led about and variable still by that ignis fatuus of phantasie, like an arthritis or running gout, ’tis here and there, and in everie joynt, alwaies molesting some part or other; or if the body be free, in a myriad of forms exercising the minde.

A second once peradventure in his life, hath a most grievous fit, once in seven years, once in five years, even to the extremitie of madness, death, or dotage, and that upon some ferall accident or perturbation, terrible object, and that for a time, never perhaps so before, never after. A third is moved upon all such troublesome objects, crosse fortune, disaster and violent passions, otherwise free, once troubled in three or four years.

A fourth, if things be to his minde, or he in action, well pleased, in good company, is most jocund, and of a good complexion: if idle, or alone, à la mort, or carried away wholly with pleasant dreams and phantasies, but if once crossed and displeased,

Pectore concipiet nil nisi triste suo.

his countenance is altered on a sudden, his hart heavie, irksome thoughts crucifie his soul, and in an instant he is moped or wearie of his life, he will kill himself. A fifth complains in his youth, a sixth in his middle age, the last in his old age.