ay, such as are aptest to love that
are young and lusty, live at ease, stall-fed, free from cares, like cattle
in a rank pasture, idle and solitary persons, they must needs
_hirquitullire_, as Guastavinius recites out of Censorinus.

[4772] "Mens erit apta capi tum quum laetissima rerum.
Ut seges in pingui luxuriabit humo."

"The mind is apt to lust, and hot or cold,
As corn luxuriates in a better mould."

The place itself makes much wherein we live, the clime, air, and discipline
if they concur. In our Misnia, saith Galen, near to Pergamus, thou shalt
scarce find an adulterer, but many at Rome, by reason of the delights of
the seat. It was that plenty of all things, which made [4773]Corinth so
infamous of old, and the opportunity of the place to entertain those
foreign comers; every day strangers came in, at each gate, from all
quarters. In that one temple of Venus a thousand whores did prostitute
themselves, as Strabo writes, besides Lais and the rest of better note: all
nations resorted thither, as to a school of Venus. Your hot and southern
countries are prone to lust, and far more incontinent than those that live
in the north, as Bodine discourseth at large, _Method, hist. cap. 5._
_Molles Asiatici_, so are Turks, Greeks, Spaniards, Italians, even all that
latitude; and in those tracts, such as are more fruitful, plentiful, and
delicious, as Valence in Spain, Capua in Italy, _domicilium luxus_ Tully
terms it, and (which Hannibal's soldiers can witness) Canopus in Egypt,
Sybaris, Phoeacia, Baiae, [4774]Cyprus, Lampsacus. In [4775]Naples the
fruit of the soil and pleasant air enervate their bodies, and alter
constitutions: insomuch that Florus calls it _Certamen Bacchi et Veneris_,
but [4776]Foliot admires it. In Italy and Spain they have their stews in
every great city, as in Rome, Venice, Florence, wherein, some say, dwell
ninety thousand inhabitants, of which ten thousand are courtesans; and yet
for all this, every gentleman almost hath a peculiar mistress;
fornications, adulteries, are nowhere so common: _urbs est jam tota
lupanar_; how should a man live honest amongst so many provocations? now if
vigour of youth, greatness, liberty I mean, and that impunity of sin which
grandees take unto themselves in this kind shall meet, what a gap must it
needs open to all manner of vice, with what fury will it rage? For, as
Maximus Tyrius the Platonist observes, _libido consequuta quum fuerit
materi