nhabitants were infinitely affrighted, and
some ran mad. _Audi rem atrocem, et annalibus memorandam_ (mine author
adds), hear a strange story, and worthy to be chronicled: I had a servant
at the same time called Fulco Argelanus, a bold and proper man, so
grievously terrified with it, that he [2156]was first melancholy, after
doted, at last mad, and made away himself. At [2157]Fuscinum in Japona
"there was such an earthquake, and darkness on a sudden, that many men were
offended with headache, many overwhelmed with sorrow and melancholy. At
Meacum whole streets and goodly palaces were overturned at the same time,
and there was such a hideous noise withal, like thunder, and filthy smell,
that their hair stared for fear, and their hearts quaked, men and beasts
were incredibly terrified. In Sacai, another city, the same earthquake was
so terrible unto them, that many were bereft of their senses; and others by
that horrible spectacle so much amazed, that they knew not what they did."
Blasius a Christian, the reporter of the news, was so affrighted for his
part, that though it were two months after, he was scarce his own man,
neither could he drive the remembrance of it out of his mind. Many times,
some years following, they will tremble afresh at the [2158]remembrance or
conceit of such a terrible object, even all their lives long, if mention be
made of it. Cornelius Agrippa relates out of Gulielmus Parisiensis, a story
of one, that after a distasteful purge which a physician had prescribed
unto him, was so much moved, [2159]"that at the very sight of physic he
would be distempered," though he never so much as smelled to it, the box of
physic long after would give him a purge; nay, the very remembrance of it
did effect it; [2160]"like travellers and seamen," saith Plutarch, "that
when they have been sanded, or dashed on a rock, for ever after fear not
that mischance only, but all such dangers whatsoever."

SUBSECT. IV.--_Scoffs, Calumnies, bitter Jests, how they cause Melancholy_.

It is an old saying, [2161]"A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow
with a sword:" and many men are as much galled with a calumny, a scurrilous
and bitter jest, a libel, a pasquil, satire, apologue, epigram, stage-play
or the like, as with any misfortune whatsoever. Princes and potentates,
that are otherwise happy, and have all at command, secure and free, _quibus
potentia sceleris impunitatem fecit_, are grievously vexed with these
pasquil