F R O M

Partition 2, Section 2, Member 4

(p. 70)

On the connection between an excess of
passive spectatorship/consumption and pathological ennui

... The Egyptians of old, and many flourishing commonwealths since, have enjoined labour and exercise to all sorts of men, to be of some vocation and calling, and to give an account of their time, to prevent those grievous mischiefs that come by idleness; “for as fodder, whip, and burthen belong to the ass, so meat, correction, and work unto the servant” (Ecclus. xxx, 24). The Turks enjoin all men whatsoever, of what degree, to be of some trade or other, the Grand Seignior himself is not excused. “In our memory” (saith Sabellicus) “Mahomet the Turk, he that conquered Greece, at that very time when he heard ambassadors of other princes, did either carve or cut wooden spoons, or frame something upon a table.” This present Sultan makes notches for bows. The Jews are most severe in this examination of time. All well-governed places, towns, families, and every discreet person will be a law unto himself. But amongst us the badge of gentry is idleness: to be of no calling, not to labour, for that derogatory to their birth, to be a mere spectator, a drone, fruges consumere natus [born only to consume his food], to have no necessary employment to busy himself about in church and commonwealth (some few governors exempted), “but to rise to eat,” etc., to spend his days in hawking, hunting, etc., and such-like disports and recreations (which our casuists tax), are the sole exercise almost, and ordinary actions of our nobility, and in which they are too immoderate. And thence it comes to pass, that in city and country so many grievances of body and mind, and this feral disease of melancholy so frequently rageth, and now domineers almost all over Europe amongst our great ones. They know not how to spend their time (disports excepted, which are all their business), what to do, or otherwise how to bestow themselves: like our modern Frenchmen, that had rather lose a pound of blood in a single combat than a drop of sweat in any honest labour. Every man almost hath something or other to employ himself about, some vocation, some trade, but they do all by ministers and servants, ad otia duntaxat se natos existimant, immo ad sui ipsius plerumque et aliorum perniciem [they think themselves born only for idleness -- nay, for their own and other people's ruin], as one freely taxeth such kind of men; they are all for pastimes, ’tis all their study; all their invention tends to this alone, to drive away time, as if they were born some of them to no other ends....

 

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F R O M

Partition 2, Section 2, Member 4

(pp. 86–87)

On the pleasures of scholarship

... But amongst those exercises or recreations of the mind within doors, there is none so general, so aptly to be applied to all sorts of men, so fit and proper to expel idleness and melancholy, as that of study. Studia senectutem oblectant, adolescentiam alunt, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium et solatium praebent, domi delectant [study is the delight of old age, the training of youth, the ornament of prosperity, the refuge and solace of adversity; it entertains us at home], etc., find the rest in Tully, pro Archia Poeta. What so full of content, as to read, walk, and see maps, pictures, statues, jewels, marbles, which some so much magnify, as those that Phidias made of old so exquisite and pleasing to be beheld, that, as Chrysostom thinketh, “if any man be sickly, troubled in mind, or that cannot sleep for grief, and shall but stand over against one of Phidias’ images, he will forget all care, or whatsoever else may molest him, in an instant”? There be those so much taken with Michael Angelo’s, Raphael de Urbino’s, Francesco Francia’s pieces, and many of those Italian and Dutch painters, which were excellent in their ages; and esteem of it as a most pleasing sight to view those neat architectures, devices, escutcheons, coats of arms, read such books, to peruse old coins of several sorts in a fair gallery; artificial works, perspective glasses, old relics, Roman antiquities, variety of colours. A good picture is falsa veritas et muta poesis [a counterfeit reality, a poem without words]; and though (as Vives saith) artificialia delectant, sed max fastidimus, artificial toys please but for a time, yet who is he that will not be moved with them for the present? When Achilles was tormented and sad for the loss of his dear friend Patroclus, his mother Thetis brought him a most elaborate and curious buckler made by Vulcan, in which were engraven sun, moon, stars, planets, sea, land, men fighting, running, riding, women scolding, hills, dales, towns, castles, brooks, rivers, trees, etc., with many pretty landskips and perspective pieces: with sight of which he was infinitely delighted, and much eased of his grief.... Who will not be affected so in like case, or to see those well-furnished cloisters and galleries of the Roman cardinals, so richly stored with all modern pictures, old statues and antiquities? Cum se Spectando recreet simul atque legendo, to see their pictures alone and read the description, as Boissardus well adds, whom will it not affect? which Bozius, Pomponius Laetus, Marlianus, Schottus, Cavelerius, Ligorius, etc., and he himself hath well performed of late. Or in some prince’s cabinets, like that of the great duke’s in Florence, of Felix Platerus in Basil, or noblemen’s houses, to see such variety of attires, faces, so many, so rare, and such exquisite pieces, of men, birds, beasts, etc., to see those excellent landskips, Dutch works, and curious cuts of Sadeler of Prague, Albertus Durer, Goltzius, Vrintes, etc., such pleasant pieces of perspective, Indian pictures made of feathers, China works, frames, thaumaturgical motions, exotic toys, etc. Who is he that is now wholly overcome with idleness, or otherwise involved in a labyrinth of worldly cares, troubles, and discontents, that will not be much lightened in his mind by reading of some enticing story, true or feigned, where as in a glass he shall observe what our forefathers have done, the beginnings, ruins, falls, periods of commonwealths, private men’s actions displayed to the life, etc....

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Also on the pleasures of scholarship

(pp. 88–90)

... Who is not earnestly affected with a passionate speech, well penned, an elegant poem, or some pleasant bewitching discourse .... To most kind of men it is an extraordinary delight to study. For what a world of books offers itself, in all subjects, arts, and sciences, to the sweet content and capacity of the reader! In arithmetic, geometry, perspective, optics, astronomy, architecture, sculptura [sculpture], pictura [painting], of which so many and such elaborate treatises are of late written; in mechanics and their mysteries, military matters, navigation, riding of horses, fencing, swimming, gardening, planting, great tomes of husbandry, cookery, falconry, hunting, fishing, fowling, etc., with exquisite pictures of all sports, games, and what not? In music, metaphysics, natural and moral philosophy, philology, in policy, heraldry, genealogy, chronology, etc., they afford great tomes; or those studies of antiquity, etc.; et quid subtilius arithmeticis inventionibus, quid jucundius musicis rationibus, quid divinius astronomicis, quid rectius geometricis demonstrationibus? [and what could be more ingenious than the devices of arithmetic, more pleasing than the theories of music, more elevating than the discoveries of astronomy, more convincing than the proofs of geometry?] What so sure, what so pleasant? He that shall but see that geometrical tower of Garisenda at Bologna in Italy, the steeple and clock at Strasburg, will admire the effects of art, or that engine of Archimedes, to remove the earth itself, if he had but a place to fasten his instrument, Archimedes’ cochlea [water-screw], and rare devices to corrivate [sic] waters, music instruments, and trisyllable echoes again, again, and again repeated, with myriads of such. What vast tomes are extant in law, physic, and divinity, for profit, pleasure, practice, speculation, in verse or prose, etc. Their names alone are the subject of whole volumes, we have thousands of authors of all sorts, many great libraries full well furnished, like so many dishes of meat served out for several palates; and he is a very block that is affected with none of them. Some take an infinite delight to study the very languages wherein these books are written, Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Chaldee, Arabic, etc. Methinks it would please any man to look upon a geographical map, suavi animum delectatione allicere, ob incredibilem rerum varietatem et jucunditatem, et ad pleniorem sui cognitionem excitare [which insensibly charms the mind with the great and pleasing variety of objects that it offers, and incites it to further study], chorographical, topographical delineations, to behold, as it were, all the remote provinces, towns, cities of the world, and never to go forth of the limits of his study, to measure by the scale and compass their extent, distance, examine their site. Charles the Great, as Platina writes, had three fair silver tables, in one of which superficies was a large map of Constantinople, in the second Rome neatly engraved, in the third an exquisite description of the whole world, and much delight he took in them. What greater pleasure can there now be, than to view those elaborate maps of Ortelius, Mercator, Hondius, etc.? To peruse those books of cities, put out by Braunus and Hogenbergius? To read those exquisite descriptions of Maginus, Munster, Herrera, Laet, Merula, Boterus, Leander, Albertus, Camden, Leo Afer, Adricomius, Nic. Gerbelius, etc.? Those famous expeditions of Christoph. Columbus, Americus Vespuccius, Marcus Polus the Venetian, Lod. Vertomannus, Aloysius Cadamustus, etc.? Those accurate diaries of Portugals, Hollanders, of Bartison, Oliver à Nort, etc., Hakluyt's Voyages, Pet. Martyr's Decades, Benzo, Lerius, Linschoten's Relations, those Hodoeporicons of Joh. à Meggen, Brocard the monk, Bredenbachius, Jo. Dublinius, Sandys, etc., to Jerusalem, Egypt, and other remote places of the world? those pleasant itineraries of Paulus Hentznerus, Jodocus Sincerus, Dux Polonus, etc., to read Bellonius' Observations, P. Gillius his Surveys; those parts of America, set out, and curiously cut in pictures, by Fratres à Bry. To see a well-cut herbal, herbs, trees, flowers, plants, all vegetals expressed in their proper colours to the life, as that of Matthiolus upon Dioscorides, Delacampius, Lobel, Bauhinus, and that last voluminous and mighty herbal of Besler of Nuremburg, wherein almost every plant is to his own bigness. To see birds, beasts, and fishes of the sea, spiders, gnats, serpents, flies, etc., all creatures set out by the same art, and truly expressed in lively colours, with an exact description of their natures, virtues, qualities, etc., as hath been accurately performed by AElian, Gesner, Ulysses Aldrovandus, Bellonius, Rondeletius, Hippolytus Salvianus, etc. Arcana coeli, naturae secreta, ordinem universi scire, majoris felicitatis et dulcedinis est, quam cogitatione quis assequi possit, aut mortalis sperare [to discover the mysteries of the heavens, the secrets of nature, and the order of the universe, would confer greater happiness and pleasure than can be imagined, or than any mortal could hope to attain]. What more pleasing studies can there be than the mathematics, theoric or practic parts? as to survey land, make maps, models, dials, etc., with which I was ever much delighted myself. Talis est mathematum pulchritudo (saith Plutarch), ut his indignum sit divitiarum phaleras istas et bullas et puellaria spectacula comparari; such is the excellency of these studies, that all those ornaments and childish bubbles of wealth are not worthy to be compared to them; Crede mihi (saith one), extingui dulce erit mathematicarum artium studio, I could even live and die with such meditations, and take more delight, true content of mind in them, than thou hast in all thy wealth and sport, how rich soever thou art. And as Cardan well seconds me, Honorificum magis est et gloriosum haec intelligere, quam provinciis praeesse, formosum aut ditem juvenem esse [it is more honourable and glorious to understand these things than to rule over provinces or be young, handsome, and rich]. The like pleasure there is in all other studies, to such as are truly addicted to them....

 

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F R O M

Partition 2, Section 2, Member 4

(pp. 95–98)

On the pleasures of engineering

[ note the reference to “Cornelius Drible,” aka Cornelis Drebbel, one of She-philosopher.com’s central PLAYERS ]

... But in all nature what is there so stupend as to examine and calculate the motion of the planets, their magnitudes, apogeums, perigeums, eccentricities, how far distant from the earth, the bigness, thickness, compass of the firmament, each star, with their diameters and circumference, apparent area, superficies, by those curious helps of glasses, astrolabes, sextants, quadrants, of which Tycho Brahe in his Mechanics, optics (divine optics), arithmetic, geometry, and such-like arts and instruments? What so intricate and pleasing withal, as to peruse and practise Hero Alexandrinus’ works, de spiritalibus, de machinis bellicis, de machina se movente [about pneumatic machines, about military engines, about a self-moving machine], Jordani Nemorarti de ponderibus proposit. 13, that pleasant tract of Machometes Bragdedinus de superficierum divisionibus [of the divisions of plane surfaces], Apollonius’ Conics, or Commandinus’ labours in that kind, de centra gravitatis, with many such geometrical theorems and problems? Those rare instruments and mechanical inventions of Jac. Bessonus and Cardan to this purpose, with many such experiments intimated long since by Roger Bacon, in his tract de secretis artis et naturæ [of the secrets of nature and art], as to make a chariot to move sine animali [without animal traction], diving-boats, to walk on the water by art and to fly in the air, to make several cranes and pulleys, quibus homo trahat ad se mille homines [by which one man can draw to himself a thousand], lift up and remove great weights, mills to move themselves, Archytas’ dove, Albertus’ brazen head, and such thaumaturgical works. But especially to do strange miracles by glasses, of which Proclus and Bacon writ of old, burning-glasses, multiplying glasses, perspectives, ut unus homo appareat exercitus [which make one man look like an army], to see afar off, to represent solid bodies by cylinders and concaves, to walk in the air, ut veraciter videant (saith Bacon) aurum et argentum et quicquid aliud volunt, et quum veniant ad locum visionis, nihil inveniant [so that they are positive they see gold and silver and whatever else they want, yet when they come to the spot they see nothing], which glasses are much perfected of late by Baptista Porta and Galileo, and much more is promised by Maginus and Midorgius, to be performed in this kind. Otacousticons some speak of, to intend hearing, as the other do sight; Marcellus Vrencken, an Hollander, in his epistle to Burgravius, makes mention of a friend of his that is about an instrument, quo videbit quae in altero horizonte sint [by which he will see things beyond the horizon]. But our alchemists, methinks, and Rosy-cross men, afford most rarities, and are fuller of experiments: they can make gold, separate and alter metals, extract oils, salts, lees, and do more strange works than Geber, Lullius, Bacon, or any of those ancients. Crollius hath made, after his master Paracelsus, aurum fulminans, or aurum volatile [explosive or volatile gold], which shall imitate thunder and lightning, and crack louder than any gunpowder; Cornelius Drible a perpetual motion, inextinguible lights, linum non ardens [non-inflammable flax], with many such feats (see his book de natura elementorum), besides hail, wind, snow, thunder, lightning, etc., those strange fireworks, devilish petards, and such-like warlike machinations derived hence, of which read Tartalea and others. Ernestus Burgravius, a disciple of Paracelsus, hath published a discourse, in which he specifies a lamp to be made of man’s blood, lucerna vitae et mortis index [a lamp which shall be an index of life and death], so he terms it, which chemically prepared forty days, and afterwards kept in a glass, shall slow all the accidents of this life; si lampas hic clarus, tunc homo hilaris et sanus corpore et animo; si nebulosus et depressus, male afficitur, et sic pro statu hominis variatur, unde sumptus sanguis [if the lamp burns clearly, then the man is cheerful and healthy in mind and body; if dim and cloudy, he is in low spirits; and so it varies with the condition of the man whose blood has been taken]; and, which is most wonderful, it dies with the party, cum homine perit, et evanescit, the lamp and the man whence the blood was taken are extinguished together. The same author hath another tract of Mummia (all out as vain and prodigious as the first), by which he will cure most diseases, and transfer them from a man to a beast, by drawing blood from one and applying it to the other, vel in plantam derivare [or even divert it to a plant], and an alexipharmacum, of which Roger Bacon of old in his tract. de retardanda senectute, to make a man young again, live three or four hundred years; besides panaceas, martial amulets, unguentum armarium [the weapon-salve], balsams, strange extracts, elixirs, and such-like magico-magnetical cures. Now what so pleasing can there be as the speculation of these things, to read and examine such experiments, or, if a man be more mathematically given, to calculate, or peruse Napier’s Logarithms, or those tables of artificial sines and tangents, not long since set out by mine old collegiate, good friend, and late fellow-student of Christ Church in Oxford, Mr. Edmund Gunter, which will perform that by addition and subtraction only, which heretofore Regiomontanus’ tables did by multiplication and division, or those elaborate conclusions of his Sector, Quadrant, and Cross-staff. Or let him that is melancholy calculate spherical triangles, square a circle, cast a nativity, which, howsoever some tax, I say with Garcæus, dabimus hoc petulantibus ingeniis [we will concede to wayward minds], we will in some cases allow: or let him make an ephemerides, read Suisset the calculator’s works, Scaliger de emendatione temporum, and Petavius his adversary, till he understand them, peruse subtle Scotus’ and Suarez’ metaphysics, or school divinity, Occam, Thomas, Entisberus, Durand, etc. If those other do not affect him, and his means be great, to employ his purse and fill his head, he may go find the philosopher’s stone; he may apply his mind, I say, to heraldry, antiquity, invent impresses, emblems; make epithalamiums, epitaphs, elegies, epigrams, palindroma epigrammata [palindromes; i.e., lines that read the same forwards and backwards], anagrams, chronograms, acrostics upon his friends’ names; or write a comment on Martianus Capella ....

 

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F R O M

Partition 2, Section 2, Member 4

(p. 98)

On a gendered practice of arts & sciences

... Now for women, instead of laborious studies, they have curious needleworks, cut-works, spinning, bone-lace, and many pretty devices of their own making, to adorn their houses, cushions, carpets, chairs, stools (“for she eats not the bread of idleness,” Prov. xxxi, 27, quaesivit lanam et linum [she hath sought out wool and flax]) confections, conserves, distillations, etc., which they show to strangers.

Ipsa comes praesesque operis venientibus ultro
Hospitibus monstrare solet, non segniter horas
Contestata suas, sed nec sibi deperiisse.

Which to her guests she shows, with all her pelf.
Thus far my maids, but this I did myself.

This they have to busy themselves about, household offices, etc., neat gardens, full of exotic, versicolour, diversely varied, sweet-smelling flowers, and plants in all kinds, which they are most ambitious to get, curious to preserve and keep, proud to possess, and much many times brag of. Their merry meetings and frequent visitations, mutual invitations in good towns, I voluntarily omit, which are so much in use, gossiping among the meaner sort, etc. Old folks have their beads: an excellent invention to keep them from idleness that are by nature melancholy and past all affairs ....

 

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F R O M

Partition 2, Section 5, Member 1, Subsection 5

(p. 250)

On the use of amulets to cure melancholy

[ note the reference to his mother, Dorothy Burton (d. 1629), who introduced her more famous son to empirical techniques for anatomizing physical and psychological ailments ]

... look for them in Mizaldus, Porta, Albertus, etc. Bassardus Visontinus, Ant. philos., commends hypericon, or St. John’s wort, gathered on a Friday in the hour of Jupiter, “when it comes to his effectual operation (that is about the full moon in July); so gathered and borne, or hung about the neck, it mightily helps this affection, and drives away all phantastical spirits.” Philes, a Greek author that flourished in the time of Michael Palæologus, writes that a sheep or kid’s skin, whom a wolf worried, Haedus inhumani raptus ab ore lupi [a kid snatched from the jaws of a cruel wolf.], ought not at all to be worn about a man, “because it causeth palpitation of the heart,” not for any fear, but a secret virtue which amulets have. A ring made of the hoof of an ass’s right fore-foot carried about, etc.: I say with Renodeus, they are not altogether to be rejected. Peony doth cure epilepsy; precious stones most diseases; a wolf’s dung borne with one helps the colic, a spider an ague, etc. Being in the country in the vacation time not many years since, at Lindley in Leicestershire, my father’s house, I first observed this amulet of a spider in a nut-shell lapped in silk, etc., so applied for an ague by my mother; whom although I knew to have excellent skill in chirurgery, sore eyes, aches, etc., and such experimental medicines, as all the country where she dwelt can witness, to have done many famous and good cures upon divers poor folks, that were otherwise destitute of help, yet, among all other experiments, this methought was most absurd and ridiculous, I could see no warrant for it. Quid aranea cum febre? [What has a spider to do with fever?] For what antipathy? till at length, rambling amongst authors (as often I do), I found this very medicine in Dioscorides, approved by Matthiolus, repeated by Aldrovandus, cap. de aranea, lib. de insectis; I began to have a better opinion of it, and to give more credit to amulets, when I saw it in some parties answer to experience. Some medicines are to be exploded, that consist of words, characters, spells, and charms, which can do no good at all, but out of a strong conceit, as Pomponatius proves; or the devil’s policy, who is the first founder and teacher of them.