business, as [56] Rhasis holds: and howbeit, stultus labor est ineptiarum, to be busy in toys is to small purpose, yet hear that divine Seneca, aliud agere quam nihil, better do to no end, than nothing. I wrote therefore, and busied myself in this playing labour, oliosaque diligentia ut vitarem torporum feriandi with Vectius in Macrobius, atque otium in utile verterem negatium. [57]Simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vita, Lectorem delectando simul atque monendo. Poets would profit or delight mankind, And with the pleasing have th' instructive joined. Profit and pleasure, then, to mix with art, T' inform the judgment, nor offend the heart, Shall gain all votes. To this end I write, like them, saith Lucian, that recite to trees, and declaim to pillars for want of auditors: as [58]Paulus Aegineta ingenuously confesseth, not that anything was unknown or omitted, but to exercise myself, which course if some took, I think it would be good for their bodies, and much better for their souls; or peradventure as others do, for fame, to show myself (Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter). I might be of Thucydides' opinion, [59]to know a thing and not to express it, is all one as if he knew it not. When I first took this task in hand, et quod ait [60]ille, impellents genio negotium suscepi, this I aimed at; [61]vel ut lenirem animum scribendo, to ease my mind by writing; for I had gravidum cor, foetum caput, a kind of imposthume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of, and could imagine no fitter evacuation than this. Besides, I might not well refrain, for ubi dolor, ibi digitus, one must needs scratch where it itches. I was not a little offended with this malady, shall I say my mistress Melancholy, my Aegeria, or my malus genius? and for that cause, as he that is stung with a scorpion, I would expel clavum clavo, [62]comfort one sorrow with another, idleness with idleness, ut ex vipera Theriacum, make an antidote out of that which was the prime cause of my disease. Or as he did, of whom [63]Felix Plater speaks, that thought he had some of Aristophanes' frogs in his belly, still crying Breec, okex, coax, coax, oop, oop, and for that cause studied physic seven years, and travelled over most part of Europe to ease himself. To do myself good I turned over such physicians as our libraries would afford, or my [64]private friends impart, and have taken this pains. And why not? Cardan professeth he wrote his book, De Consolatione after his son's death, to comfort himself; so did Tully write of the same subject with like intent after his daughter's departure, if it be his at least, or some impostor's put out in his name, which Lipsius probably suspects. Concerning myself, I can peradventure affirm with Marius in Sallust, [65]that which others hear or read of, I felt and practised myself; they get their knowledge by books, I mine by melancholising. Experto crede Roberto. Something I can