I advise them therefore warily to peruse that tract, Lapides loquitur (so said Agrippa de occ. Phil.) & caveant lectores ne cerebrum iis excutiat. The rest I doubt not they may securely reade, and to their benefit. But I am over-tedious, I proceed.

Of the necessity and generality of this which I have said, if any man doubt, I shall desire him to make a brief survey of the world, as Cyprian adviseth Donat, supposing himself to be transported to the top of some high mountain, and thence to behold the tumults and chances of this wavering world, he cannot chuse but either laugh at, or pity it. S. Hierom out of a strong imagination, being in the wilderness, conceived with himself, that he then saw them dancing in Rome;

and if thou shalt either conceive, or clime to see, thou shalt soon perceive that all the world is mad, that it is melancholy, dotes: that it is (which Epichthonius Cosmopolites expressed not many years since in a map) made like a fools head (with that Motto, Caput helleboro dignum) a crased head, cavea stultorum, a fools paradise, or as Apollonius, a common prison of guls, cheaters, flatterers, &c. and needs to be reformed.

Strabo in the ninth book of his geographie, compares Greece to the picture of a man, which comparison of his, Nic. Gerbelius in his exposition of Sophianus map, approves; The breast lies open from those Acroceraunian hils in Epirus, to the Sunian promontory in Attica; Pagæ and Megara are the two shoulders, that Istmos of Corinth the neck; and Peloponnesus the head. If this allusion hold, tis sure a mad head, Morea may be Moria; and to speak what I think, the inhabitants of moderne Greece, swerve as much from reason, & true religion at this day, as that Morea doth from the picture of a man.

Examine the rest in like sort, and you shall finde that kingdoms and Provinces are melancholy, cities and families, all creatures, vegetal, sensible, and rational, that all sorts, sects, ages, conditions, are out of tune, as in Cebes table, omnes errorem bibunt, before they come into the world, they are intoxicated by errors cup, from the highest to the lowest, have need of Physick, and those particular actions in Seneca, where father & son prove one another mad, may be general: Porcius Latro shall plead against us all.

For indeed who is not a fool, melancholy, mad? —Qui nil molitur inepte, who is not brain-sick? Folly, melancholy, madnes, are but one disease, Delirium is a common name to all. Alexander, Gordonius, Jason Pratensis, Savanarola, Guianerius, Montaltus, confound them as differing secundum magis & minus; so doth David, Psal. 37. 5. I said unto the fools, deal not so madly, & twas an old Stoicall Paradox, omnes stultos insanire, all fools are mad, though some madder then others.

And who is not a fool, who is free from melancholy? Who is not touched more or lesse in habit or disposition? If in disposition, ill dispositions beget habits, if they persevere, saith Plutarch, habits either are, or turn to diseases. Tis the same which Tully maintains in the second of his Tusculanes, omnium insipientum animi in morbo sunt, & perturbatorum, Fools are sick, and all that are troubled in minde:

for what is sickness, but as Gregorie Tholosanus defines it, A dissolution or perturbation of the bodily league, which health combines: And who is not sick, or ill disposed? in whom doth not passion, anger, envy, discontent, fear and sorrow raign? Who labours not of this disease? Give me but a little leave, & you shall see by what testimonies, confessions, arguments I wil evince it, that most men are mad, that they had as much need to go a pilgrimage to the Anticyræ (as in Strabos time they did) as in our daies they run to Compostella, our Lady of Sichem, or Lauretta, to seek for help; that it is like to be as prosperous a voyage as that of Guiana, and that there is much more need of Hellebor then of Tobacco.

That men are so misaffected, melancholy, mad, giddy-headed, hear the testimony of Solomon, Eccl. 2. 12. And I turned to behold wisdom, madness and folly, &c. And ver. 23. All his dayes are sorrow, his travel grief, and his heart taketh no rest in the night. So that take melancholy in what sense you will, properly or improperly, in disposition or habit, for pleasure or for pain, dotage, discontent, fear, sorrow, madnes, for part, or all, truly, or metaphorically, tis all one. Laughter it self is madnes according to Solomon, and as S. Paul hath it, worldly sorrow brings death. The hearts of the sons of men are evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, Eccl. 9. 3.

Wise men themselves are no better, Ecc. 1. 18. In the multitude of wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth wisdom increaseth sorrow. Cap. 2. 17. He hated life it self, nothing pleased him, he hated his labor, all, as he concludes, is sorrow, grief, vanity, vexation of spirit. And though he were the wisest man in the world, sanctuarium sapientiæ, and had wisdom in abundance, he wil not vindicate himself, or justifie his own actions. Surely I am more foolish then any man, and have not the understanding of a man in me, Pro. 30. 2. Be they Solomons words, or the words of Agur the son of Jakeh, they are canonicall.