, study too hard, be over-sorrowful,
dull, heavy, dejected in mind, perplexed in his thoughts, fearful, &c.,
"their children" (saith [1337]Cardan _subtil. lib. 18_) "will be much
subject to madness and melancholy; for if the spirits of the brain be
fuzzled, or misaffected by such means, at such a time, their children will
be fuzzled in the brain: they will be dull, heavy, timorous, discontented
all their lives." Some are of opinion, and maintain that paradox or
problem, that wise men beget commonly fools; Suidas gives instance in
Aristarchus the Grammarian, _duos reliquit Filios Aristarchum et
Aristachorum, ambos stultos_; and which [1338]Erasmus urgeth in his
_Moria_, fools beget wise men. Card. _subt. l. 12_, gives this cause,
_Quoniam spiritus sapientum ob studium resolvuntur, et in cerebrum feruntur
a corde_: because their natural spirits are resolved by study, and turned
into animal; drawn from the heart, and those other parts to the brain.
Lemnius subscribes to that of Cardan, and assigns this reason, _Quod
persolvant debitum languide, et obscitanter, unde foetus a parentum
generositate desciscit_: they pay their debt (as Paul calls it) to their
wives remissly, by which means their children are weaklings, and many times
idiots and fools.

Some other causes are given, which properly pertain, and do proceed from
the mother: if she be over-dull, heavy, angry, peevish, discontented, and
melancholy, not only at the time of conception, but even all the while she
carries the child in her womb (saith Fernelius, _path. l. 1, 11_) her son
will be so likewise affected, and worse, as [1339]Lemnius adds, _l. 4. c.
7_, if she grieve overmuch, be disquieted, or by any casualty be affrighted
and terrified by some fearful object, heard or seen, she endangers her
child, and spoils the temperature of it; for the strange imagination of a
woman works effectually upon her infant, that as Baptista Porta proves,
_Physiog. caelestis l. 5. c. 2_, she leaves a mark upon it, which is most
especially seen in such as prodigiously long for such and such meats, the
child will love those meats, saith Fernelius, and be addicted to like
humours: [1340]"if a great-bellied woman see a hare, her child will often
have a harelip," as we call it. Garcaeus, _de Judiciis geniturarum, cap.
33_, hath a memorable example of one Thomas Nickell, born in the city of
Brandeburg, 1551, [1341]"that went reeling and staggering all the days of
his life, as if he would