urches were turned to
stables, old monuments and books made horse-litter, or burned like straw;
relics, costly pictures defaced; altars demolished, rich hangings, carpets,
&c., trampled in the dirt. [2346]Their wives and loveliest daughters
constuprated by every base cullion, as Sejanus' daughter was by the hangman
in public, before their fathers and husbands' faces. Noblemen's children,
and of the wealthiest citizens, reserved for princes' beds, were prostitute
to every common soldier, and kept for concubines; senators and cardinals
themselves dragged along the streets, and put to exquisite torments, to
confess where their money was hid; the rest, murdered on heaps, lay
stinking in the streets; infants' brains dashed out before their mothers'
eyes. A lamentable sight it was to see so goodly a city so suddenly
defaced, rich citizens sent a begging to Venice, Naples, Ancona, &c., that
erst lived in all manner of delights. [2347]"Those proud palaces that even
now vaunted their tops up to heaven, were dejected as low as hell in an
instant." Whom will not such misery make discontent? Terence the poet
drowned himself (some say) for the loss of his comedies, which suffered
shipwreck. When a poor man hath made many hungry meals, got together a
small sum, which he loseth in an instant; a scholar spent many an hour's
study to no purpose, his labours lost, &c., how should it otherwise be? I
may conclude with Gregory, _temporalium amor, quantum afficit, cum haeret
possessio, tantum quum subtrahitur, urit dolor_; riches do not so much
exhilarate us with their possession, as they torment us with their loss.

Next to sorrow still I may annex such accidents as procure fear; for
besides those terrors which I have [2348]before touched, and many other
fears (which are infinite) there is a superstitious fear, one of the three
great causes of fear in Aristotle, commonly caused by prodigies and dismal
accidents, which much trouble many of us, (_Nescio quid animus mihi
praesagit mali._) As if a hare cross the way at our going forth, or a mouse
gnaw our clothes: if they bleed three drops at nose, the salt falls towards
them, a black spot appear in their nails, &c., with many such, which Delrio
_Tom. 2. l. 3. sect. 4._ Austin Niphus in his book _de Auguriis._ Polydore
Virg. _l. 3. de Prodigas_. Sarisburiensis _Polycrat. l. 1. c. 13._ discuss
at large. They are so much affected, that with the very strength of
imagination, fear, and the devil's cr