how tedious
is it to them that live in stoves and caves half a year together? as in
Iceland, Muscovy, or under the [2195]pole itself, where they have six
months' perpetual night. Nay, what misery and discontent do they endure,
that are in prison? They want all those six non-natural things at once,
good air, good diet, exercise, company, sleep, rest, ease, &c., that are
bound in chains all day long, suffer hunger, and (as [2196]Lucian describes
it) "must abide that filthy stink, and rattling of chains, howlings,
pitiful outcries, that prisoners usually make; these things are not only
troublesome, but intolerable." They lie nastily among toads and frogs in a
dark dungeon, in their own dung, in pain of body, in pain of soul, as
Joseph did, Psal. cv. 18, "they hurt his feet in the stocks, the iron
entered his soul." They live solitary, alone, sequestered from all company
but heart-eating melancholy; and for want of meat, must eat that bread of
affliction, prey upon themselves. Well might [2197]Arculanus put long
imprisonment for a cause, especially to such as have lived jovially, in all
sensuality and lust, upon a sudden are estranged and debarred from all
manner of pleasures: as were Huniades, Edward, and Richard II., Valerian
the Emperor, Bajazet the Turk. If it be irksome to miss our ordinary
companions and repast for once a day, or an hour, what shall it be to lose
them for ever? If it be so great a delight to live at liberty, and to enjoy
that variety of objects the world affords; what misery and discontent must
it needs bring to him, that shall now be cast headlong into that Spanish
inquisition, to fall from heaven to hell, to be cubbed up upon a sudden,
how shall he be perplexed, what shall become of him? [2198] Robert Duke of
Normandy being imprisoned by his youngest brother Henry I., _ab illo die
inconsolabili dolore in carcere contabuit_, saith Matthew Paris, from that
day forward pined away with grief. [2199]Jugurtha that generous captain,
"brought to Rome in triumph, and after imprisoned, through anguish of his
soul, and melancholy, died." [2200]Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, the second
man from King Stephen (he that built that famous castle of [2201]Devizes in
Wiltshire,) was so tortured in prison with hunger, and all those calamities
accompanying such men, [2202]_ut vivere noluerit, mori nescierit_, he would
not live, and could not die, between fear of death, and torments of life.
Francis King of France was taken p