r. Camden, to take away
the envy of his work (which very words Nubrigensis hath of Roger the rich
bishop of Salisbury, who in king Stephen's time built Shirburn castle, and
that of Devises), to divert the scandal or imputation, which might be
thence inferred, built so many religious houses. If this my discourse be
over-medicinal, or savour too much of humanity, I promise thee that I will
hereafter make thee amends in some treatise of divinity. But this I hope
shall suffice, when you have more fully considered of the matter of this my
subject, _rem substratam_, melancholy, madness, and of the reasons
following, which were my chief motives: the generality of the disease, the
necessity of the cure, and the commodity or common good that will arise to
all men by the knowledge of it, as shall at large appear in the ensuing
preface. And I doubt not but that in the end you will say with me, that to
anatomise this humour aright, through all the members of this our
Microcosmus, is as great a task, as to reconcile those chronological errors
in the Assyrian monarchy, find out the quadrature of a circle, the creeks
and sounds of the north-east, or north-west passages, and all out as good a
discovery as that hungry [172]Spaniard's of Terra Australis Incognita, as
great trouble as to perfect the motion of Mars and Mercury, which so
crucifies our astronomers, or to rectify the Gregorian Calendar. I am so
affected for my part, and hope as [173]Theophrastus did by his characters,
"That our posterity, O friend Policles, shall be the better for this which
we have written, by correcting and rectifying what is amiss in themselves
by our examples, and applying our precepts and cautions to their own use."
And as that great captain Zisca would have a drum made of his skin when he
was dead, because he thought the very noise of it would put his enemies to
flight, I doubt not but that these following lines, when they shall be
recited, or hereafter read, will drive away melancholy (though I be gone)
as much as Zisca's drum could terrify his foes. Yet one caution let me give
by the way to my present, or my future reader, who is actually melancholy,
that he read not the [174]symptoms or prognostics in this following tract,
lest by applying that which he reads to himself, aggravating, appropriating
things generally spoken, to his own person (as melancholy men for the most
part do) he trouble or hurt himself, and get in conclusion more harm than
good. I a