Ajax ran mad, because his arms were
adjudged to Ulysses. In China 'tis an ordinary thing for such as are
excluded in those famous trials of theirs, or should take degrees, for
shame and grief to lose their wits, [1681]Mat Riccius expedit. ad
Sinas, l. 3. c. 9. Hostratus the friar took that book which Reuclin had
writ against him, under the name of Epist. obscurorum virorum, so to
heart, that for shame and grief he made away with himself, [1682]Jovius
in elogiis. A grave and learned minister, and an ordinary preacher at
Alcmar in Holland, was (one day as he walked in the fields for his
recreation) suddenly taken with a lax or looseness, and thereupon
compelled to retire to the next ditch; but being [1683]surprised at
unawares, by some gentlewomen of his parish wandering that way, was so
abashed, that he did never after show his head in public, or come into
the pulpit, but pined away with melancholy: (Pet. Forestus med.
observat. lib. 10. observat. 12.) So shame amongst other passions can
play his prize.
I know there be many base, impudent, brazenfaced rogues, that will
[1684] Nulla pallescere culpa, be moved with nothing, take no infamy or
disgrace to heart, laugh at all; let them be proved perjured,
stigmatised, convict rogues, thieves, traitors, lose their ears, be
whipped, branded, carted, pointed at, hissed, reviled, and derided with
[1685]Ballio the Bawd in Plautus, they rejoice at it, Cantores probos;
babe and Bombax, what care they? We have too many such in our times,
———Exclamat Melicerta perisse
———Frontem de rebus.[1686]
Yet a modest man, one that hath grace, a generous spirit, tender of his
reputation, will be deeply wounded, and so grievously affected with it,
that he had rather give myriads of crowns, lose his life, than suffer
the least defamation of honour, or blot in his good name. And if so be
that he cannot avoid it, as a nightingale, Que cantando victa moritur,
(saith [1687]Mizaldus,) dies for shame if another bird sing better, he
languisheth and pineth away in the anguish of his spirit.
SUBSECT. VII.—_Envy, Malice, Hatred, Causes_.
Envy and malice are two links of this chain, and both, as Guianerius,
Tract. 15. cap. 2, proves out of Galen, 3 Aphorism, com. 22, [1688]
cause this malady by themselves, especially if their bodies be
otherwise disposed to melancholy. 'Tis Valescus de Taranta, and Felix
Platerus' observation, [1689]Envy so gnaws many men's hearts, that they
become altogether melancholy. And therefore belike Solomon, Prov. xiv.
13, calls it, the rotting of the bones, Cyprian, vulnus occultum;
[1690]———Siculi non invenere tyranni
Majus tormentum———
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