Just as there are different sorts suited to different occupations, ages, sexes, and conditions, so there are recreations appropriate to different seasons and of different kinds, to suit the variety of temperaments among people: if one will not serve, another may. Some are for summer, some for winter; some gentle, some more vigorous; some for the mind alone, others for both body and mind.

For some people, supervising workmen of all kinds, farming, cattle, horses, and so forth is both business and pleasant recreation; so too are building, planning, devising projects, making models, adding up accounts, and the like. Some pastimes are outdoors, some indoors; some new, some old, according to the season and people’s inclinations.

It is related of Philip the Good, that good duke of Burgundy—by Juan Luis Vives in a letter, and by Pontus Heuterus in his history—that at the marriage of Elionara, sister of the king of Portugal, at Bruges in Flanders, celebrated in the depth of winter, the duke could neither hawk nor hunt because of the unsuitable weather. Tired by then of cards, dice, other indoor pastimes, and watching ladies dance, he would walk disguised through the town in the evenings with some of his courtiers.

One night, while walking late, he happened upon a countryman dead drunk, snoring on a bench. He had his followers carry the man to his palace, strip off his old clothes, and dress him in court fashion. When he awoke, the duke and his companions stood ready to wait upon “his excellency,” persuading him that he was a great duke.

The poor fellow, wondering how he had come there, was waited on in state all day. After supper he watched dancing, heard music, and enjoyed the other pleasures of court. Late at night, however, once he was thoroughly drunk and fast asleep again, they dressed him in his old clothes and carried him back to the place where they had found him.

The fellow had not amused them so much the day before as he did when he came to himself. The whole joke was to see how he would take it. After some initial amazement, the poor man told his friends that he had seen a vision. He firmly believed it and would not be persuaded otherwise; and so the joke ended.

Antiochus Epiphanes would often disguise himself, slip away from court, and enter the shops of merchants, goldsmiths, and other tradesmen, sitting and talking with them. Sometimes he rode or walked alone and struck up a conversation with any tinker, countryman, servant, carrier, or whoever he happened to meet first. Sometimes he gave a poor fellow money “unexpectedly,” to see his reaction, or deliberately dropped his purse as he went, watching to see who found it and how the finder responded. Such sights greatly delighted him.

Great men commonly practise many such tricks to cheer themselves and others; all of them are harmless jokes and have their good uses.

But among indoor exercises or recreations of the mind, none is so universal, so well suited to every kind of person, so fit and proper to drive away idleness and melancholy, as study. “Studies delight old age, nourish youth, adorn prosperity, offer refuge and consolation in adversity, and give pleasure at home,” and so forth: find the rest in Cicero’s speech For the Poet Archias.

What gives more contentment than reading, walking, and looking at maps, pictures, statues, jewels, and marbles, which some praise so highly? The works Phidias made long ago were so exquisite and pleasing to behold that, as Chrysostom thinks, anyone who is ill, troubled in mind, or unable to sleep for grief need only stand before one of Phidias’s statues to forget every care and whatever else troubles him in an instant.

Others are equally captivated by the works of Michelangelo, Raphael of Urbino, Francesco Francia, and the many Italian and Dutch painters who excelled in their time. They find it wonderfully pleasing to look at elegant architecture, decorative designs, escutcheons and coats of arms; to read books about such things; and to examine old coins of various kinds in a fine gallery, works of craftsmanship, optical glasses, ancient relics, Roman antiquities, and a variety of colours.

A good picture is “a counterfeit truth and silent poetry.” And though, as Vives says, “things made by art delight us, but soon we tire of them”—artificial curiosities please only for a time—who will not be moved by them while that pleasure lasts?

When Achilles was tormented and saddened by the loss of his dear friend Patroclus, his mother Thetis brought him a most elaborate and finely wrought shield made by Vulcan. On it were engraved the sun, moon, stars, planets, sea, and land; men fighting, running, and riding; women scolding; hills, valleys, towns, castles, brooks, rivers, trees, and so forth, with many beautiful landscapes and scenes in perspective. The sight delighted him immensely and greatly relieved his grief.

At once, captivated by the sight, with sorrow soothed, He took delight, holding the god’s splendid gifts in his hands.

Who would not be moved in the same way, or by seeing the well-furnished cloisters and galleries of the Roman cardinals, so richly stocked with modern paintings, ancient statues, and antiquities? “Since one refreshes oneself by looking and reading together”: who would not be moved simply by seeing their pictures and reading the descriptions, as Boissard aptly adds? Bozius, Pomponius Laetus, Marlianus, Schottus, Cavalieri, Ligorio, and others, including Boissard himself, have lately done this well.

Or, in princely cabinets of curiosities, such as the grand duke’s at Florence, in Felix Platter’s at Basel, or in noblemen’s houses, to see so many varied costumes and faces, so many rare and exquisite representations of people, birds, beasts, and the like; to see the excellent landscapes, Dutch works, and intricate engravings of Sadeler of Prague, Albrecht Dürer, Goltzius, Vrints, and others; such delightful scenes in perspective, Indian feather pictures, Chinese wares, frames, marvellous moving devices, foreign curiosities, and so forth.