nd Paracelsus in his book of Madness, who
brags how many several persons he hath cured of it. Felix Plateras _de
mentis alienat. cap. 3_, reports of a woman in Basil whom he saw, that
danced a whole month together. The Arabians call it a kind of palsy. Bodine
in his 5th book _de Repub. cap. 1_, speaks of this infirmity; Monavius in
his last epistle to Scoltizius, and in another to Dudithus, where you may
read more of it.

The last kind of madness or melancholy, is that demoniacal (if I may so
call it) obsession or possession of devils, which Platerus and others would
have to be preternatural: stupend things are said of them, their actions,
gestures, contortions, fasting, prophesying, speaking languages they were
never taught, &c. Many strange stories are related of them, which because
some will not allow, (for Deacon and Darrel have written large volumes on
this subject pro and con.) I voluntarily omit.

[922]Fuschius, _Institut. lib. 3. sec. 1. cap. 11_, Felix Plater,
[923]Laurentius, add to these another fury that proceeds from love, and
another from study, another divine or religious fury; but these more
properly belong to melancholy; of all which I will speak [924]apart,
intending to write a whole book of them.

SUBSECT. V.--_Melancholy in Disposition, improperly so called,
Equivocations_.

Melancholy, the subject of our present discourse, is either in disposition
or habit. In disposition, is that transitory melancholy which goes and
comes upon every small occasion of sorrow, need, sickness, trouble, fear,
grief, passion, or perturbation of the mind, any manner of care,
discontent, or thought, which causeth anguish, dullness, heaviness and
vexation of spirit, any ways opposite to pleasure, mirth, joy, delight,
causing frowardness in us, or a dislike. In which equivocal and improper
sense, we call him melancholy that is dull, sad, sour, lumpish, ill
disposed, solitary, any way moved, or displeased. And from these melancholy
dispositions, [925]no man living is free, no stoic, none so wise, none so
happy, none so patient, so generous, so godly, so divine, that can
vindicate himself; so well composed, but more or less, some time or other
he feels the smart of it. Melancholy in this sense is the character of
mortality. [926]"Man that is born of a woman, is of short continuance, and
full of trouble." Zeno, Cato, Socrates himself, whom [927]Aelian so highly
commends for a moderate temper, that "nothing could disturb h