no tongue can sufficiently declare, every story is full of men and womens unsatiable lust, Nero’s, Heliogabali, Bonosi, &c. Cœlius Amphilenum, sed Quintius Amphilenam depererunt, &c. They neigh after other mens wives (as Jeremy cap. 5. 8. complaineth) like fed horses, or range like town Bulls, raptores virginum & viduarum, as many of our great ones do.

Solomons wisdom was extinguished in this fire of lust, Sampsons strength enervated, piety in Lots daughters quite forgot, gravity of Priesthood in Helies sons, reverend old age in the Elders that would violate Susanna, filiall duty in Absolon to his stepmother, brotherly love in Ammon towards his sister.

Humane, divine laws, precepts, exhortations, fear of God and men, fair, foul means, fame, fortunes, shame, disgrace, honor cannot oppose, stave off, or withstand the fury of it, omnia vincit amor, &c.

No cord, nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twin’d thread; The scorching beams under the Æquinoctiall, or extremity of cold within the circle Artique, where the very Seas are frozen, cold or torrid zone cannot avoid, or expell this heat, fury and rage of mortall men.

Quo fugis ah demens, nulla est fuga, tu licet usq; Ad Tanaim fugias, usq; sequetur amor.

Of womens unnaturall, unsatiable lust, what Country, what Village doth not complain? Mother and daughter sometimes dote on the same man, father and son, master and servant on one woman.

—— Sed amor, sed inæffrenata libido, Quid castum in terris intentatumq; reliquit?

What breach of vows and oaths, fury, dotage, madness, might I reckon up? Yet this is more tolerable in youth, and such as are still in their hot and lusty bloud: but for an old fool to dote, to see an old leacher, what more odious, what can be more absurd? and yet what so common? Who so furious?

Amare ea ætate si occiperint, multo insaniunt acrius,

Some dote then more then ever they did in their youth. How many decrepit, hoary, harsh, writhen, bursten-bellied, crooked, toothless, bald, blear-eyed, impotent, rotten, old men shall you see fickering still in every place?

One gets him a yong wife, another a Curtisan, and when he can scarce lift his leg over a sill, and hath one foot already in Charons boat, when he hath the trembling in his joynts, the gout in his feet; a perpetuall rhume in his head, a continuate cough, his sight fails him, thick of hearing, his breath stinks, all his moisture is dried up and gone, may not spit from him, a very child again, that cannot dress himself, or cut his own meat, yet he will be dreaming of, and honing after wenches, what can be more unseemly?

Worse it is in women then in men, when she is †ætate declivis, diu vidua, mater olim, parum decorè matrimonium sequi videtur, an old widdow, a mother so long since (in Plinies opinion) she doth very unseemly seek to marry,

yet whilst she is so old a crone, a beldam, she can neither see, nor hear, go nor stand, a meer karkass, a witch, and scarce feel; she catterwauls, and must have a stallion, a Champion, she must and will marry again, and betroth her self to some yong man, that hates to look on, but for her goods; abhors the sight of her, to the prejudice of her good name, her own undoing, grief of friends, and ruin of her children.

But to enlarge or illustrate this power and effects of love, is to set a candle in the Sun. It rageth with all sorts and conditions of men, yet is most evident among such as are yong and lusty, in the flower of their years, nobly descended, high fed, such as live idly, and at ease;

and for that cause (which our Divines call burning lust) this ferinus insanus amor, this mad and beastly passion, as I have said, is named by our Physitians, Heroicall love, and a more honorable title put upon it, Amor nobilis, as Savanarola stiles it, because noble men and women make a common practise of it, and are so ordinarily affected with it.

Avicenna lib. 3. Fen. 1. tract. 4. cap. 23. calleth this passion Ilishi, and defines it to be a disease or melancholy vexation, or anguish of minde, in which a man continually meditates of the beauty, gesture, manners of his Mistris, and troubles himself about it: desiring (as Savanarola adds) with all intentions and eagerness of minde to compass or enjoy her, as commonly Hunters trouble themselves about their sports, the covetous, about their gold & goods, so is he tormented still about his Mistris.

Arnoldus Villanovanus in his book of Heroicall love defines it, a continuall cogitation of that which he desires, with a confidence or hope of compassing it: which definition his Commentator cavils at.

For continuall cogitation is not the genus, but a symptome of love; we continually think of that which we hate and abhor, as well as that which we love; and many things we covet and desire, without all hope of attaining.

Carolus à Lorme in his Questions makes a doubt, An amor sit morbus, whether this heroicall love be a disease: Julius Pollux Onomast. lib. 6. cap. 44. determines it; They that are in love are likewise sick; lascivus, salax, lasciviens, & qui in venerem furit, verè est ægrotus. Arnoldus will have it improperly so called, and a malady rather of the body, then minde.

Tully in his Tusculans defines it a furious disease of the minde, Plato madness it self, Ficinus his Commentator, cap. 12. a species of madness, for many have run mad for women, Esdr. 4. 26. but Rhases a melancholy passion, and most Physitians make it a species, or kinde of melancholy (as will appear by the Symptomes) and treat of it apart:

whom I mean to imitate, and to discuss it in all his kinds, to examine his severall causes, to shew his symptomes, indications, prognosticks, effect, that so it may be with more facility cured.