geous, [2570]ready to disgrace, provoke any, to kill
themselves and others; Arnoldus adds, stark mad by fits, [2571]"they sleep
little, their urine is subtle and fiery." (Guianerius.) "In their fits you
shall hear them speak all manner of languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin,
that never were taught or knew them before." Apponensis in _com. in Pro.
sec. 30._ speaks of a mad woman that spake excellent good Latin: and Rhasis
knew another, that could prophecy in her fit, and foretell things truly to
come. [2572]Guianerius had a patient could make Latin verses when the moon
was combust, otherwise illiterate. Avicenna and some of his adherents will
have these symptoms, when they happen, to proceed from the devil, and that
they are rather _demoniaci_, possessed, than mad or melancholy, or both
together, as Jason Pratensis thinks, _Immiscent se mali genii_, &c. but
most ascribe it to the humour, which opinion Montaltus _cap. 21._ stiffly
maintains, confuting Avicenna and the rest, referring it wholly to the
quality and disposition of the humour and subject. Cardan _de rerum var.
lib. 8. cap. 10._ holds these men of all others fit to be assassins, bold,
hardy, fierce, and adventurous, to undertake anything by reason of their
choler adust. [2573]"This humour, saith he, prepares them to endure death
itself, and all manner of torments with invincible courage, and 'tis a
wonder to see with what alacrity they will undergo such tortures," _ut
supra naturam res videatur_: he ascribes this generosity, fury, or rather
stupidity, to this adustion of choler and melancholy: but I take these
rather to be mad or desperate, than properly melancholy; for commonly this
humour so adust and hot, degenerates into madness.

If it come from melancholy itself adust, those men, saith Avicenna, [2574]
"are usually sad and solitary, and that continually, and in excess, more
than ordinarily suspicious more fearful, and have long, sore, and most
corrupt imaginations;" cold and black, bashful, and so solitary, that as
[2575]Arnoldus writes, "they will endure no company, they dream of graves
still, and dead men, and think themselves bewitched or dead:" if it be
extreme, they think they hear hideous noises, see and talk [2576]"with
black men, and converse familiarly with devils, and such strange chimeras
and visions," (Gordonius) or that they are possessed by them, that somebody
talks to them, or within them. _Tales melancholici plerumque daemoniaci_,
Montaltus