ne; I
write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy. There is no greater
cause of melancholy than idleness, "no better cure than business," as
[56]Rhasis holds: and howbeit, _stultus labor est ineptiarum_, to be busy
in toys is to small purpose, yet hear that divine Seneca, _aliud agere quam
nihil_, better do to no end, than nothing. I wrote therefore, and busied
myself in this playing labour, _oliosaque diligentia ut vitarem torporum
feriandi_ with Vectius in Macrobius, _atque otium in utile verterem
negatium_.

[57] "Simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vita,
Lectorem delectando simul atque monendo."

"Poets would profit or delight mankind,
And with the pleasing have th' instructive joined.
Profit and pleasure, then, to mix with art,
T' inform the judgment, nor offend the heart,
Shall gain all votes."

To this end I write, like them, saith Lucian, that "recite to trees, and
declaim to pillars for want of auditors:" as [58]Paulus Aegineta
ingenuously confesseth, "not that anything was unknown or omitted, but to
exercise myself," which course if some took, I think it would be good for
their bodies, and much better for their souls; or peradventure as others
do, for fame, to show myself (_Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc
sciat alter_). I might be of Thucydides' opinion, [59]"to know a thing and
not to express it, is all one as if he knew it not." When I first took this
task in hand, _et quod ait [60]ille, impellents genio negotium suscepi_,
this I aimed at; [61]_vel ut lenirem animum scribendo_, to ease my mind by
writing; for I had _gravidum cor, foetum caput_, a kind of imposthume in my
head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of, and could imagine no
fitter evacuation than this. Besides, I might not well refrain, for _ubi
dolor, ibi digitus_, one must needs scratch where it itches. I was not a
little offended with this malady, shall I say my mistress Melancholy, my
Aegeria, or my _malus genius_? and for that cause, as he that is stung with
a scorpion, I would expel _clavum clavo_, [62]comfort one sorrow with
another, idleness with idleness, _ut ex vipera Theriacum_, make an antidote
out of that which was the prime cause of my disease. Or as he did, of whom
[63]Felix Plater speaks, that thought he had some of Aristophanes' frogs in
his belly, still crying _Breec, okex, coax, coax, oop, oop_, and for that
cause studied physic seven years, and travelled