while, [3263]"I see the gods now" (saith
he) "which before I heard of," _nec feliciorem ullam vitae meae aut optavi,
aut sensi diem_: it was the happiest day that ever he had in his life. Such
a sight alone were able of itself to drive away melancholy; if not for
ever, yet it must needs expel it for a time. Radzivilus was much taken with
the pasha's palace in Cairo, and amongst many other objects which that
place afforded, with that solemnity of cutting the banks of the Nile by
Imbram Pasha, when it overflowed, besides two or three hundred gilded
galleys on the water, he saw two millions of men gathered together on the
land, with turbans as white as snow; and 'twas a goodly sight. The very
reading of feasts, triumphs, interviews, nuptials, tilts, tournaments,
combats, and monomachies, is most acceptable and pleasant. [3264]
Franciscus Modius hath made a large collection of such solemnities in two
great tomes, which whoso will may peruse. The inspection alone of those
curious iconographies of temples and palaces, as that of the Lateran church
in Albertus Durer, that of the temple of Jerusalem in [3265]Josephus,
Adricomius, and Villalpandus: that of the Escurial in Guadas, of Diana at
Ephesus in Pliny, Nero's golden palace in Rome, [3266]Justinian's in
Constantinople, that Peruvian Jugo's in [3267]Cusco, _ut non ab hominibus,
sed a daemoniis constructum videatur_; St. Mark's in Venice, by Ignatius,
with many such; _priscorum artificum opera_ (saith that [3268]interpreter
of Pausanias), the rare workmanship of those ancient Greeks, in theatres,
obelisks, temples, statues, gold, silver, ivory, marble images, _non minore
ferme quum leguntur, quam quum cernuntur, animum delectatione complent_,
affect one as much by reading almost as by sight.

The country hath his recreations, the city his several gymnics and
exercises, May games, feasts, wakes, and merry meetings, to solace
themselves; the very being in the country; that life itself is a sufficient
recreation to some men, to enjoy such pleasures, as those old patriarchs
did. Diocletian, the emperor, was so much affected with it, that he gave
over his sceptre, and turned gardener. Constantine wrote twenty books of
husbandry. Lysander, when ambassadors came to see him, bragged of nothing
more than of his orchard, _hi sunt ordines mei_. What shall I say of
Cincinnatus, Cato, Tully, and many such? how they have been pleased with
it, to prune, plant, inoculate and graft, to show s