DEMOCRITUS JUNIOR TO THE READER. a GENTLE reader, I presume thou wilt be very inquisitive to know what antick or personate actor this is, that so insolently intrudes, upon this common theatre, to the worlds view, arrogating another mans name, whence he is, why he doth it, and what he hath to say. Although, as he said, Primum, si noluero, non respondebo: quis coacturus est? (I am a free man born, and may choose whether I will tell who can compel me?) if I be urged, I will as readily reply as that Egyptian in Plutarch, when a curious fellow would needs know what he had in his basket, Quum vides velatam, quid inquiris in rem absconditam? It was therefore covered, because he should not know what was in it. Seek not after that which is hid: if the contents please thee, and be for thy use, suppose the man in the moon, or whom thou wilt, to be the author: I would not willingly be known. Yet, in some sort to give thee satisfaction, which is more than I need, I will shew a reason, both of this usurped name, title, and subject. And first of the name of Democritus; lest any man, by reason of it, should be deceived, expecting a pasquil, a satyre, some ridiculous treatise (as I my self should have done), some prodigious tenent, or paradox of the earths motion, of infinite worlds, in infinito vacuo, ex fortuitá atomorum collisione, in an infinite waste, so caused by an accidental collision of motes in the sun, all which Democritus held, Epicurus and their master Leucippus of old maintained, and are lately revived by Copernicus, Brunus, and some others. Besides, it hath been alwayes an ordinary custom, as d Gellius observes, for later writers and impostors, to broach many absurd and insolent fictions, under the name of so noble a philosopher as Democritus, to get themselves credit, and by that means the more to be respected, as artificers usually do, novo qui marmori ascribunt Praxitelem suo. "Tis not so with me. •Non hic Centauros, non Gorgonas, Harpyiasque, No Centaurs here, or Gorgons, look to find: Thou thy self art the subject of my discourse. Quidquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas, Whate'er men do, vows, fears, in ire, in sport, My intent is no otherwise to use his name, than Mercurius Gallobelgicus, Mercurius Britannicus, use the name of Mercurie, Democritus Christianus, &c. although there be some other circumstances for which I have masked myself under this visard, and some peculiar respects, which I cannot so well express, until I have set down a brief character of this our Democritus, what he was, with an epitome of his life. Democritus, as he is described by Hippocrates, and Laërtius, was a little wearish old man, very melancholy by nature, averse from company in his latter dayes, and much given to solitariness, a famous philosopher in k ⚫ Seneca, in Ludo in mortem Clandii Cæsaris. b Lib. de Curiositate. • Modo hæc tibi usui sint, quemvis auctorem fingito. Wecker. Lib. 10, c. 12. Multa a male feriatis in Democriti nomine commenta data, nobilitatis, auctoritatisque ejus perfugio utentibus. • Martialis, lib. 10. epigr. 14. ! Juv. Sat. 1. Auth. Pet. Besseo, edit. Coloniæ 1616. Hist. Epist. Damaget. Laërt. lib. 9. tulo sibi cellulam seligens, ibique seipsum includens, vixit solitarius. B * Hor his 1 age, coævous with Socrates, wholly addicted to his studies at the last, and to a private life; writ many excellent works, a great divine, according to the divinity of those times, an expert physician, a politician, an excellent mathematician, as m Diacosmus and the rest of his works do witness. He was much delighted with the studies of husbandry, saith " Columella; and often I find him cited by Constantinus and others treating of that subject. He knew the natures, differences of all beasts, plants, fishes, birds; and, as some say, could P understand the tunes and voices of them. In a word, he was omnifariam doctus, a general scholar, a great student; and, to the intent he might better contemplate, I find it related by some, that he put out his eyes, and was in his old age voluntarily blind, yet saw more than all Greece besides, and writ of every subject: Nihil in toto opificio naturæ, de quo non scripsit: a man of an excellent wit, profound conceit; and, to attain knowledge the better in his younger years, he travelled to Egypt and • Athens, to confer with learned men, admired of some, despised of others. After a wandring life, he setled at Abdera, a town in Thrace, and was sent for thither to be their law-maker, recorder, or town-clerk, as some will; or as others, he was there bred and born. Howsoever it was, there he lived at last in a garden in the suburbs, wholly betaking himself to his studies and a private life, "saving that sometimes he would walk down to the haven, and laugh heartily at such variety of ridiculous objects, which there he saw. Such a one was Democritus. S y X But, in the mean time, how doth this concern me, or upon what reference do I usurp this habit? I confess, indeed, that to compare myself unto him for ought I have yet said, were both impudency and arrogancy. I do not presume to make any parallel. Antistat mihi millibus trecentis: * parvus sum; nullus sum; altum nec spiro, nec spero. Yet thus much I will say of my self, and that I hope without all suspicion of pride, or self-conceit, I have lived a silent, sedentary, solitary, private life, mihi et Musis, in the university, as long almost as Xenocrates in Athens, ad senectam fere, to learn wisdom as he did, penned up most part in my study: for I have been brought up a student in the most flourishing college of Europe, augustissimo collegio, and can brag with Jovius, almost, in eá luce domicilii Vaticani, totius orbis celeberrimi, per 37 annos multa opportunaque didici; for thirty years I have continued (having the use of as good a libraries as ever he had) a scholar, and would be therefore loth, either, by living as a drone, to be an unprofitable or unworthy member of so learned and noble a society, or to write that which should be any way dishonourable to such a royal and ample foundation. Something I have done: though by my profession a divine, yet turbine raptus ingenii, as he said, out of a running wit, an unconstant, unsettled mind, I had a great desire (not able to attain to a superficial skill in any) to have some smattering in all, to be aliquis in omnibus, nullus in singulis; which Plato commends, out of him Lipsius approves and furthers, as fit to be imprinted in all curious wits, not to be a slave of one science, or dwell altogether in one subject, as most do, but to rove abroad, centum puer artium, to have an oar in every mans boat, to Laërt. C d 'Floruit Olympiade 80; 700 annis post Trojam. Diacos. quod cunctis operibus facile excellit. Col. 1. 1. c. 1. Const. lib. de agric, passim. Volucrum voces et linguas intelligere se dicit Abderitanus. Ep. Hip. Sabellicus, exempl. lib. 10. Oculis se privavit, ut melius contemplationi operam daret, sublimi vir ingenio, profunda cogitationis, &c. Naturalia, moralia, matheimatica, liberales disciplinas, artiumque omnium peritiam, callebat. Veni Athenas; et nemo me novit. Idem contemptui et admirationi habitus. Solebat ad portam ambulare, et inde, &c. Hip. Ep. Dameg. Perpetuo risu pulmonem agitare solebat Democritus. Juv. Sat. 7. Non sum dignus præstare matellam. Mart. y Christ Church in Oxford. Præfat. hist. • Keeper of our college library lately revived by Otho Nicolson, Esquire. Scaliger. • In Theat. JPhil. Stoic. li. diff. 8. Dogma cupidis et curiosis ingeniis imprimendum, ut artifices, &c. I taste of every dish, and to sip of every cup; which, saith 'Montaigne, was well performed by Aristotle, and his learned countrey-man Adrian Turnebus. This roving humour (though not with like success) I have ever had, and, like a ranging spaniel, that barks at every bird he sees, leaving his game, have followed all, saving that which I should, and may justly complain, and truly, qui ubique est, nusquam est, which & Gesner did in modesty; that I have read many books, but to little purpose, for want of good method, I have confusedly tumbled over divers authors in our libraries with small profit, for want of art, order, memory, judgement. I never travelled but in map or card, in which my unconfined thoughts have freely expatiated, as having ever been especially delighted with the study of cosmography. Saturn was lord of my geniture, culminating, &c. and Mars principal significator of manners, in partile conjunction with mine ascendent; both fortunate in their houses, &c. I am not poor, I am not rich; nihil est, nihil deest; I have little, I want nothing: all my treasure is in Minerva's tower. Greater preferment as I could never get, so am I not in debt for it. I have a competency (laus Deo) from my noble and munificent patrons. Though I live still a collegiate student, as Democritus in his garden, and lead a monastique life, ipse mihi theatrum, sequestred from those tumults and troubles of the world, et tamquam in specula positus (i as he said), in some high place above you all, like Stoicus sapiens, omnia sæcula præterita præsentiaque videns, uno velut intuitu, I hear and see what is done abroad, how others run, ride, turmoil, and macerate themselves in court and countrey. Far from those wrangling law-suits, aulæ vanitatem, fori ambitionem, ridere mecum soleo: I laugh at all, only secure, lest my suit go amiss, my ships perish, corn and cattle miscarry, trade decay, I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for; a meer spectator of other mens fortunes and adventures, and how they act their parts, which me thinks are diversely presented unto me, as from a common theatre or scene. I hear new news every day and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged in France, Germany, Turky, Persia, Poland, &c. daily musters and preparations, and such like, which these tempestuous times afford, battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies, shipwracks, piracies, and seafights, peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms-a vast confusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, law-suits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances are daily brought to our ears: new books every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion, &c. Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubiles, embassies, tilts, and tornaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, playes: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villanies, in all kinds, funerals, burials, death of princes, new discoveries, expeditions; now comical, then tragical matters. To day we hear of new lords and officers created, to morrow of some great men deposed, and then again of fresh honours conferred one is let loose, another imprisoned one purchaseth, another breaketh: he thrives, his neighbour turns bankrupt; now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps, &c. Thus I daily hear, and such like, both private and public news. • Delibare gratum de quocunque cibo, et pitissare de quocunque dolio jucundum. f Essays, lib. 3. Præfat. bibliothec. Ambo fortes et fortunati. Mars idem magisterii dominus juxta primam Leovitii regulam. ¡ Heinsius. Calide ambientes, solicite litigantes, aut misere excidentes, voces, strepitum, contentiones, &c. Cyp. ad Donat. Unice securus, ne excidam in foro, aut in mari Indico bouis eluam, de dote filiæ, patrimonio filii non sum solicitus. Amidst the gallantry and misery of the world, jollity, pride, perplexities and cares, simplicity and villany, subtlety, knavery, candour and integrity, mutually mixt and offering themselves, I rub on, privus privatus: as I have still lived, so I now continue statu quo prius, left to a solitary life, and mine own domestick discontents; saving that sometimes, ne quid mentiar, as Diogenes went into the city and Democritus to the haven, to see fashions, I did for my recreation now and then walk abroad, look into the world, and could not chuse but make some little observation, non tam sagax observator, ac simplex recitator, not, as they did, to scoff or laugh at all, but with a mixt passion: Bilem, sæpe jocum vestri movere tumultus." r n I did sometime laugh and scoff with Lucian, and satyrically tax with Menippus, lament with Heraclitus, sometimes again I was petulanti splene cachinno, and then again, °urere bilis jecur, I was much moved to see that abuse which I could not amend: in which passion howsoever I may sympathize with him or them, 'tis for no such respect I shroud my self under his name, but either, in an unknown habit, to assume a little more liberty and freedom of speech, or if you will needs know, for that reason and only respect which Hippocrates relates at large in his epistle to Damegetus, wherein he doth express, how, coming to visit him one day, he found Democritus in his garden at Abdera, in the suburbs, P under a shady bower, with a book on his knees, busie at his study, sometime writing, sometime walking. The subject of his book was melancholy and madness: about him lay the carkasses of many several beasts, newly by him cut up and anatomized; not that he did contemn Gods creatures, as he told Hippocrates, but to find out the seat of this atra bilis, or melancholy, whence it proceeds, and how it is engendred in mens bodies, to the intent he might better cure it in himself, by his writings and observations teach others how to prevent and avoid it. Which good intent of his Hippocrates highly commended, Democritus Junior is therefore bold to imitate, and, because he left it imperfect, and it is now lost, quasi succenturiator Democriti, to revive again, prosecute, and finish in this treatise. You have had a reason of the name. If the title and inscription offend your gravity, were it a sufficient justification to accuse others, I could produce many sober treatises, even sermons themselves, which in their fronts carry more phantastical names. Howsoever, it is a kind of policy in these dayes, to prefix a phantastical title to a book which is to be sold for as larks come down to a day-net, many vain readers will tarry and stand gazing, like silly passengers, at an antick picture in a painter's shop, that will not look at a judicious piece. And indeed, as Scaliger observes, nothing more invites a reader than an argument unlooked for, unthought of, and sells better than a scurrile pamphlet, tum maxime cum novitas excitat palatum. Many men, saith Gellius, are very conceited in their inscriptions, and able, (as "Pliny quotes out of Seneca) to make him loyter by the way, that went in haste to fetch a mid-wife for his daughter, now ready to lie down. For my part, I have honourable precedents for this I have done: I will cite one for all, Anthonie Zara Pap. Episc. his Anatomy of Wit, in four sections, members, subsections, &c. to be read in our libraries. S If any man except against the matter or manner of treating of this my subject, and will demand a reason of it, I can allege more than one. I write Hor. " Per. • Hor. P Secundum monia locus erat frondosis populis opacus, vitibusque sponte natis tenuis prope aqua defluebat, placide murmurans, ubi sedile et domus Democriti conspiciebatur. Ipse composite considebat, super genua volumen habens, et utrinque alia patentia parata, dissectaque anímalia cumulatim strata, quorum viscera rimabatur. Cum mundus extra se sit. et mente captus sit, et nesciat se languere, ut medelam adhibeat. Scaliger, Ep. ad Patisonem. Nihil magis lectorem invitat quam inopinatum argumentum ; neque vendibilior merx est quam petulans liber. * Lib. xx. c. 11. Miras sequuntur inscriptionum festivitates. "Præfat. Nat. Hist. Patri obstetricem parturienti filiæ accersenti moram injicere possunt. ▾ Anatomy of Popery. Anatomy of Immor tality. Angelus Scalas, Anatomy of Antimony, &c. of melancholy, by being busie, to avoid melancholy. There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness, no better cure than business, as * Rhasis holds and howbeit, stultus labor est ineptiarum, to be busied in toyes is to small purpose, yet hear that divine Seneca, better aliud agere quam nihil, better do to no end, than nothing. I writ therefore, and busied my self in this playing labour, otiosáque diligentiá ut vitarem torporem feriandi, with Vectius in Macrobius, atque otium in utile verterem negotium; -Simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitæ Lectorem delectando simul atque monendo. Hcy. 2 To this end I write, like them, saith Lucian, that recite to trees, and declaim to pillars, for want of auditors; as Paulus Ægineta ingenuously confesseth, not that any thing was unknown or omitted, but to exercise my self (which course if some took, I think it would be good for their bodies, and much better for their souls); or peradventure, as others do, for fame to shew my self (Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter). I might be of Thucydides opinion, to know a thing and not to express it, is all one as if he knew it not. When I first took this task in hand, et, quod ait bille, impellente genio negotium suscepi, this I aimed at, vel ut lenirem animum scribendo, to ease my mind by writing, for I had, gravidum cor, fetum caput, a kind of imposthume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of, and could imagine no fitter evacuation than this. Besides, I might not well refrain; for, ubi dolor, ibi digitus, one must needs scratch where it itches. I was not a little offended with this malady, shall I say my mistris melancholy, my Egeria, or my malus genius; and for that cause, as he that is stung with a scorpion, I would expel, clavum clavo, d comfort one sorrow with another, idleness with idleness, ut ex vipera theriacum, make an antidote out of that which was the prime cause of my disease. Or as he did, of whom *Felix Plater speaks, that thought he had some of Aristophanes frogs in his belly, still crying Brecc' ekex, coax, oop, oop, and for that cause studied physick seven years, and travelled over most part of Europe, to ease himself; to do my self good, I turned over such physicians as our libraries would afford, or my private friends impart, and have taken this pains. And why not? Cardan professeth he writ his book De consolatione after his sons death, to comfort himself; so did Tully write of the same subject with like intent after his daughters departure, if it be his at least, or some impostors put out in his name, which Lipsius probably suspects. Concerning my self, I can peradventure affirm with Marius in Sallust, that which others hear or read of, I felt and practised my self: they get their knowledge by books, I mine by melancholizing: experto crede Roberto. Something I can speak out of experience, ærumnabilis experientia me docuit; and with her in the poet, Haud ignara mali miseris succurrere disco. I would help others out of a fellow-feeling, and as that vertuous lady did of old, being a leper her self, bestow all her portion to build an hospital for lepers, I will spend my time. and knowledge, which are my greatest fortunes, for the common good of all. Yea, but you will inferr that this is 1actum agere, an unnecessary work, cramben bis coctam apponere, the same again and again in other words. To what purpose? Nothing is omitted that may well be said: so thought Lucian in the like theam. How many excellent physicians have written just volumes Cont. 1. 4. c. 9. Non est cura melior quam labor. y Hor. Non quod de novo quid addere, aut a veteribus prætermissum, sed propriæ exercitationis caussâ. • Qui novit, neque id quod sentit exprimit, perinde est ac si nesciret. Jovius, Præf. Hist. Erasmus. d Otium otio, dolorem dolore, sum solatus. Observat. 1. 1. M. Joh. Rous. our protobib. Oxon. Mr. Hopper, Mr. Guthridge, &c. Quæ illi andire et legere solent, eorum partim vidi egomet, alia gessi: quæ illi literis, ego militando didici. Nunc vos existimate, facta an dicta pluris sint. ¡Dido, Virg. Ipsa elephantiasi correpta elephantiasis hospitium construxit. Iliada post Homerum. in Nihil prætermissum quod a quovis dici possit. Camden, |