These blessings, friend, a Deity bestow'd, For never can I deem him less than God.
that have provided for us so many well-furnished libraries, as well in our public academies in most cities, as in our private colleges? How shall I remember [3342]Sir Thomas Bodley, amongst the rest, [3343]Otho Nicholson, and the Right Reverend John Williams, Lord Bishop of Lincoln (with many other pious acts), who besides that at St. John's College in Cambridge, that in Westminster, is now likewise in Fieri with a library at Lincoln (a noble precedent for all corporate towns and cities to imitate), O quam te memorem (vir illustrissime) quibus elogiis? But to my task again. Whosoever he is therefore that is overrun with solitariness, or carried away with pleasing melancholy and vain conceits, and for want of employment knows not how to spend his time, or crucified with worldly care, I can prescribe him no better remedy than this of study, to compose himself to the learning of some art or science. Provided always that this malady proceed not from overmuch study; for in such case he adds fuel to the fire, and nothing can be more pernicious: let him take heed he do not overstretch his wits, and make a skeleton of himself; or such inamoratos as read nothing but play-books, idle poems, jests, Amadis de Gaul, the Knight of the Sun, the Seven Champions, Palmerin de Oliva, Huon of Bordeaux, &c. Such many times prove in the end as mad as Don Quixote. Study is only prescribed to those that are otherwise idle, troubled in mind, or carried headlong with vain thoughts and imaginations, to distract their cogitations (although variety of study, or some serious subject, would do the former no harm) and divert their continual meditations another way. Nothing in this case better than study; semper aliquid memoriter ediscant, saith Piso, let them learn something without book, transcribe, translate, &c. Read the Scriptures, which Hyperius, lib. 1. de quotid. script. lec. fol. 77. holds available of itself, [3344]the mind is erected thereby from all worldly cares, and hath much quiet and tranquillity. For as [3345]Austin well hath it, 'tis scientia scientiarum, omni melle dulcior, omni pane suavior, omni vino, hilarior: 'tis the best nepenthe, surest cordial, sweetest alterative, presentest diverter: for neither as [3346]Chrysostom well adds, those boughs and leaves of trees which are plashed for cattle to stand under, in the heat of the day, in summer, so much refresh them with their acceptable shade, as the reading of the Scripture doth recreate and comfort a distressed soul, in sorrow and affliction. Paul bids pray continually; quod cibus corpori, lectio animae facit, saith Seneca, as meat is to the body, such is reading to the soul. [3347]To be at leisure without books is another hell, and to be buried alive. [3348]Cardan calls a library the physic of the soul; [3349]divine authors fortify the mind, make men bold and constant; and (as Hyperius adds) godly conference will not permit the mind to be tortured with absurd cogitations. Rhasis enjoins continual conference to such melancholy men, perpetual discourse of some history, tale, poem, news, &c., alternos sermones edere ac bibere, aeque jucundum quam cibus, sive potus, which feeds the mind as meat and drink doth the body, and pleaseth as much: and therefore the said Rhasis, not without good cause, would have somebody still talk seriously, or dispute with them, and sometimes [3350]to cavil and wrangle (so that it break not out to a violent perturbation), for such altercation is like stirring of a dead fire to make it burn afresh, it whets a dull spirit, and will not suffer the mind to be drowned in those profound cogitations, which melancholy men are commonly troubled with. [3351]Ferdinand and Alphonsus, kings of Arragon and Sicily, were both cured by reading the history, one of Curtius, the other of Livy, when no prescribed physic would take place. [3352]Camerarius relates as much of Lorenzo de' Medici. Heathen philosophers arc so full of divine precepts in this kind, that, as some think, they alone are able to settle a distressed mind. [3353]Sunt verba et voces, quibus hunc lenire dolorem, &c. Epictetus, Plutarch, and Seneca; qualis ille, quae tela, saith Lipsius, adversus omnes animi casus administrat, et ipsam mortem, quomodo vitia eripit, infert virtutes? when I read Seneca, [3354]methinks I am beyond all human fortunes, on the top of a hill above mortality. Plutarch saith as much of Homer, for which cause belike Niceratus, in Xenophon, was made by his parents to con Homer's Iliads and Odysseys without book, ut in virum bonum evaderet, as well to make him a good and honest man, as to avoid idleness.