e comes out
of an old vessel. How many deformed princes, kings, emperors, could I
reckon up, philosophers, orators? Hannibal had but one eye, Appius
Claudius, Timoleon, blind, Muleasse, king of Tunis, John, king of Bohemia,
and Tiresias the prophet. [3606]"The night hath his pleasure;" and for the
loss of that one sense such men are commonly recompensed in the rest; they
have excellent memories, other good parts, music, and many recreations;
much happiness, great wisdom, as Tully well discourseth in his [3607]
Tusculan questions: Homer was blind, yet who (saith he) made more accurate,
lively, or better descriptions, with both his eyes? Democritus was blind,
yet as Laertius writes of him, he saw more than all Greece besides, as
[3608]Plato concludes, _Tum sane mentis oculus acute incipit cernere, quum
primum corporis oculus deflorescit_, when our bodily eyes are at worst,
generally the eyes of our soul see best. Some philosophers and divines have
evirated themselves, and put out their eyes voluntarily, the better to
contemplate. Angelus Politianus had a tetter in his nose continually
running, fulsome in company, yet no man so eloquent and pleasing in his
works. Aesop was crooked, Socrates purblind, long-legged, hairy; Democritus
withered, Seneca lean and harsh, ugly to behold, yet show me so many
flourishing wits, such divine spirits: Horace a little blear-eyed
contemptible fellow, yet who so sententious and wise? Marcilius Picinus,
Faber Stapulensis, a couple of dwarfs, [3609]Melancthon a short
hard-favoured man, _parvus erat, sed magnus erat_, &c., yet of incomparable
parts all three. [3610]Ignatius Loyola the founder of the Jesuits, by
reason of a hurt he received in his leg, at the siege of Pampeluna, the
chief town of Navarre in Spain, unfit for wars and less serviceable at
court, upon that accident betook himself to his beads, and by those means
got more honour than ever he should have done with the use of his limbs,
and properness of person: [3611]_Vulnus non penetrat animum_, a wound hurts
not the soul. Galba the emperor was crook-backed, Epictetus lame: that
great Alexander a little man of stature, [3612]Augustus Caesar of the same
pitch: Agesilaus _despicabili forma_; Boccharis a most deformed prince as
ever Egypt had, yet as [3613]Diodorus Siculus records of him, in wisdom and
knowledge far beyond his predecessors. _A. Dom._ 1306. [3614] Uladeslaus
Cubitalis that pigmy king of Poland reigned and fought more victo