bject to it:"
and such Rhasis adds, [1974]"that have commonly the finest wits." _Cont.
lib. 1, tract. 9_, Marsilius Ficinus, _de sanit. tuenda, lib. 1. cap. 7_,
puts melancholy amongst one of those five principal plagues of students,
'tis a common Maul unto them all, and almost in some measure an inseparable
companion. Varro belike for that cause calls _Tristes Philosophos et
severos_, severe, sad, dry, tetric, are common epithets to scholars: and
[1975]Patritius therefore, in the institution of princes, would not have
them to be great students. For (as Machiavel holds) study weakens their
bodies, dulls the spirits, abates their strength and courage; and good
scholars are never good soldiers, which a certain Goth well perceived, for
when his countrymen came into Greece, and would have burned all their
books, he cried out against it, by no means they should do it, [1976]
"leave them that plague, which in time will consume all their vigour, and
martial spirits." The [1977]Turks abdicated Cornutus the next heir from the
empire, because he was so much given to his book: and 'tis the common tenet
of the world, that learning dulls and diminisheth the spirits, and so _per
consequens_ produceth melancholy.

Two main reasons may be given of it, why students should be more subject to
this malady than others. The one is, they live a sedentary, solitary life,
_sibi et musis_, free from bodily exercise, and those ordinary disports
which other men use: and many times if discontent and idleness concur with
it, which is too frequent, they are precipitated into this gulf on a
sudden: but the common cause is overmuch study; too much learning (as
[1978]Festus told Paul) hath made thee mad; 'tis that other extreme which
effects it. So did Trincavelius, _lib. 1, consil. 12 and 13_, find by his
experience, in two of his patients, a young baron, and another that
contracted this malady by too vehement study. So Forestus, _observat. l.
10, observ. 13_, in a young divine in Louvain, that was mad, and said
[1979]"he had a Bible in his head:" Marsilius Ficinus _de sanit. tuend.
lib. 1, cap. 1, 3, 4_, and _lib. 2, cap. 16_, gives many reasons, [1980]
"why students dote more often than others." The first is their negligence;
[1981]"other men look to their tools, a painter will wash his pencils, a
smith will look to his hammer, anvil, forge; a husbandman will mend his
plough-irons, and grind his hatchet if it be dull; a falconer or huntsman
will have