med her head, and made herself mad."

Cold air in the other extreme is almost as bad as hot, and so doth
Montaltus esteem of it, _c. 11_, if it be dry withal. In those northern
countries, the people are therefore generally dull, heavy, and many
witches, which (as I have before quoted) Saxo Grammaticus, Olaus, Baptista
Porta ascribe to melancholy. But these cold climes are more subject to
natural melancholy (not this artificial) which is cold and dry: for which
cause [1525]Mercurius Britannicus belike puts melancholy men to inhabit
just under the Pole. The worst of the three is a [1526]thick, cloudy,
misty, foggy air, or such as come from fens, moorish grounds, lakes,
muck-hills, draughts, sinks, where any carcasses, or carrion lies, or from
whence any stinking fulsome smell comes: Galen, Avicenna, Mercurialis, new
and old physicians, hold that such air is unwholesome, and engenders
melancholy, plagues, and what not? [1527]Alexandretta, an haven-town in the
Mediterranean Sea, Saint John de Ulloa, an haven in Nova-Hispania, are much
condemned for a bad air, so are Durazzo in Albania, Lithuania, Ditmarsh,
Pomptinae Paludes in Italy, the territories about Pisa, Ferrara, &c. Romney
Marsh with us; the Hundreds in Essex, the fens in Lincolnshire. Cardan, _de
rerum varietate, l. 17, c. 96_, finds fault with the sight of those rich,
and most populous cities in the Low Countries, as Bruges, Ghent, Amsterdam,
Leiden, Utrecht, &c. the air is bad; and so at Stockholm in Sweden; Regium
in Italy, Salisbury with us, Hull and Lynn: they may be commodious for
navigation, this new kind of fortification, and many other good necessary
uses; but are they so wholesome? Old Rome hath descended from the hills to
the valley, 'tis the site of most of our new cities, and held best to build
in plains, to take the opportunity of rivers. Leander Albertus pleads hard
for the air and site of Venice, though the black moorish lands appear at
every low water: the sea, fire, and smoke (as he thinks) qualify the air;
and [1528]some suppose, that a thick foggy air helps the memory, as in them
of Pisa in Italy; and our Camden, out of Plato, commends the site of
Cambridge, because it is so near the fens. But let the site of such places
be as it may, how can they be excused that have a delicious seat, a
pleasant air, and all that nature can afford, and yet through their own
nastiness, and sluttishness, immund and sordid manner of life, suffer their
air to putrefy