s, a perpetual
meditation of their trophies and plaudits, they run at last quite mad, and
lose their wits. [1963]Petrarch, _lib. 1 de contemptu mundi_, confessed as
much of himself, and Cardan, in his fifth book of wisdom, gives an instance
in a smith of Milan, a fellow-citizen of his, [1964]one Galeus de Rubeis,
that being commended for refining of an instrument of Archimedes, for joy
ran mad. Plutarch in the life of Artaxerxes, hath such a like story of one
Chamus, a soldier, that wounded king Cyrus in battle, and "grew thereupon
so [1965]arrogant, that in a short space after he lost his wits." So many
men, if any new honour, office, preferment, booty, treasure, possession, or
patrimony, _ex insperato_ fall unto them for immoderate joy, and continual
meditation of it, cannot sleep [1966]or tell what they say or do, they are
so ravished on a sudden; and with vain conceits transported, there is no
rule with them. Epaminondas, therefore, the next day after his Leuctrian
victory, [1967]"came abroad all squalid and submiss," and gave no other
reason to his friends of so doing, than that he perceived himself the day
before, by reason of his good fortune, to be too insolent, overmuch joyed.
That wise and virtuous lady, [1968]Queen Katherine, Dowager of England, in
private talk, upon like occasion, said, that [1969]"she would not willingly
endure the extremity of either fortune; but if it were so, that of
necessity she must undergo the one, she would be in adversity, because
comfort was never wanting in it, but still counsel and government were
defective in the other:" they could not moderate themselves.

SUBSECT. XV.--_Love of Learning, or overmuch study. With a Digression of
the misery of Scholars, and why the Muses are Melancholy_.

Leonartus Fuchsius _Instit. lib. iii. sect. 1. cap. 1._ Felix Plater, _lib.
iii. de mentis alienat_. Herc. de Saxonia, _Tract. post. de melanch. cap.
3_, speak of a [1970]peculiar fury, which comes by overmuch study.
Fernelius, _lib. 1, cap. 18_, [1971]puts study, contemplation, and
continual meditation, as an especial cause of madness: and in his _86
consul._ cites the same words. Jo. Arculanus, _in lib. 9, Rhasis ad
Alnansorem, cap. 16_, amongst other causes reckons up _studium vehemens_:
so doth Levinus Lemnius, _lib. de occul. nat. mirac. lib. 1, cap. 16._
[1972]"Many men" (saith he) "come to this malady by continual [1973]study,
and night-waking, and of all other men, scholars are most su