a fuga
ferrum redegit in viscera_, "one hangs himself before his own
door,--another throws himself from the house-top, to avoid his master's
anger,--a third, to escape expulsion, plunges a dagger into his heart,"--so
many causes there are--_His amor exitio est, furor his_--love, grief,
anger, madness, and shame, &c. 'Tis a common calamity, [2748]a fatal end to
this disease, they are condemned to a violent death, by a jury of
physicians, furiously disposed, carried headlong by their tyrannising
wills, enforced by miseries, and there remains no more to such persons, if
that heavenly Physician, by his assisting grace and mercy alone do not
prevent, (for no human persuasion or art can help) but to be their own
butchers, and execute themselves. Socrates his _cicuta_, Lucretia's dagger,
Timon's halter, are yet to be had; Cato's knife, and Nero's sword are left
behind them, as so many fatal engines, bequeathed to posterity, and will be
used to the world's end, by such distressed souls: so intolerable,
insufferable, grievous, and violent is their pain, [2749]so unspeakable and
continuate. One day of grief is an hundred years, as Cardan observes: 'Tis
_carnificina hominum, angor animi_, as well saith Areteus, a plague of the
soul, the cramp and convulsion of the soul, an epitome of hell; and if
there be a hell upon earth, it is to be found in a melancholy man's heart.

"For that deep torture may be call'd an hell,
When more is felt, than one hath power to tell."

Yea, that which scoffing Lucian said of the gout in jest, I may truly
affirm of melancholy in earnest.

[2750] "O triste nomen! o diis odibile
Melancholia lacrymosa, Cocyti filia,
Tu Tartari specubus opacis edita
Erinnys, utero quam Megara suo tulit,
Et ab uberibus aluit, cuique parvidae
Amarulentum in os lac Alecto dedit,
Omnes abominabilem te daemones
Produxere in lucem, exitio mortalium. _Et paulo post_
Non Jupiter ferit tale telum fulminis,
Non ulla sic procella saevit aequoris,
Non impetuosi tanta vis est turbinis.
An asperos sustineo morsus Cerberi?
Num virus Echidnae membra mea depascitur?
Aut tunica sanie tincta Nessi sanguinis?
Illacrymabile et immedicabile malum hoc."

"O sad and odious name! a name so fell,
Is this of melancholy, brat of hell.
There born in hellish darkness doth it dwell,
The F