Such feral accidents can want and penury produce. Be it by suretyship, shipwreck, fire, spoil and pillage of soldiers, or what loss soever, it boots not, it will work the like effect, the same desolation in provinces and cities, as well as private persons. The Romans were miserably dejected after the battle of Cannae, the men amazed for fear, the stupid women tore their hair and cried. The Hungarians, when their king Ladislaus and bravest soldiers were slain by the Turks, Luctus publicus, &c. The Venetians when their forces were overcome by the French king Lewis, the French and Spanish kings, pope, emperor, all conspired against them, at Cambray, the French herald denounced open war in the senate: Lauredane Venetorum dux, &c., and they had lost Padua, Brixia, Verona, Forum Julii, their territories in the continent, and had now nothing left, but the city of Venice itself, et urbi quoque ipsi (saith [2344]Bembus) timendum putarent, and the loss of that was likewise to be feared, tantus repente dolor omnes tenuit, ut nunquam, alias, &c., they were pitifully plunged, never before in such lamentable distress. _Anno_ 1527, when Rome was sacked by Burbonius, the common soldiers made such spoil, that fair [2345]churches were turned to stables, old monuments and books made horse-litter, or burned like straw; relics, costly pictures defaced; altars demolished, rich hangings, carpets, &c., trampled in the dirt. [2346]Their wives and loveliest daughters constuprated by every base cullion, as Sejanus' daughter was by the hangman in public, before their fathers and husbands' faces. Noblemen's children, and of the wealthiest citizens, reserved for princes' beds, were prostitute to every common soldier, and kept for concubines; senators and cardinals themselves dragged along the streets, and put to exquisite torments, to confess where their money was hid; the rest, murdered on heaps, lay stinking in the streets; infants' brains dashed out before their mothers' eyes. A lamentable sight it was to see so goodly a city so suddenly defaced, rich citizens sent a begging to Venice, Naples, Ancona, &c., that erst lived in all manner of delights. [2347]Those proud palaces that even now vaunted their tops up to heaven, were dejected as low as hell in an instant. Whom will not such misery make discontent? Terence the poet drowned himself (some say) for the loss of his comedies, which suffered shipwreck. When a poor man hath made many hungry meals, got together a small sum, which he loseth in an instant; a scholar spent many an hour's study to no purpose, his labours lost, &c., how should it otherwise be? I may conclude with Gregory, temporalium amor, quantum afficit, cum haeret possessio, tantum quum subtrahitur, urit dolor; riches do not so much exhilarate us with their possession, as they torment us with their loss. Next to sorrow still I may annex such accidents as procure fear; for besides those terrors which I have [2348]before touched, and many other fears (which are infinite) there is a superstitious fear, one of the three great causes of fear in Aristotle, commonly caused by prodigies and dismal accidents, which much trouble many of us, (Nescio quid animus mihi praesagit mali.) As if a hare cross the way at our going forth, or a mouse gnaw our clothes: if they bleed three drops at nose, the salt falls towards them, a black spot appear in their nails, &c., with many such, which Delrio Tom. 2. l. 3. sect. 4. Austin Niphus in his book de Auguriis. Polydore Virg. l. 3. de Prodigas. Sarisburiensis Polycrat. l. 1. c. 13. discuss at large. They are so much affected, that with the very strength of imagination, fear, and the devil's craft, [2349]they pull those misfortunes they suspect, upon their own heads, and that which they fear, shall come upon them, as Solomon fortelleth, Prov. x. 24. and Isaiah denounceth, lxvi. 4. which if [2350]they could neglect and contemn, would not come to pass, Eorum vires nostra resident opinione, ut morbi gravitas ?grotantium cogitatione, they are intended and remitted, as our opinion is fixed, more or less. N. N. dat poenas, saith [2351]Crato of such a one, utinam non attraheret: he is punished, and is the cause of it [2352] himself: [2353]Dum fata fugimus fata stulti incurrimus, the thing that I feared, saith Job, is fallen upon me. As much we may say of them that are troubled with their fortunes; or ill destinies foreseen: multos angit praecientia malorum: The foreknowledge of what shall come to pass, crucifies many men: foretold by astrologers, or wizards, iratum ob coelum, be it ill accident, or death itself: which often falls out by God's permission; quia daemonem timent (saith Chrysostom) Deus ideo permittit accidere.