They are void of reason, inexorable, blind, like beasts and monsters for the time, say and do they know not what, curse, swear, rail, fight, and what not? How can a mad man do more? as he said in the comedy, [1734] Iracundia non sum apud me, I am not mine own man. If these fits be immoderate, continue long, or be frequent, without doubt they provoke madness. Montanus, consil. 21, had a melancholy Jew to his patient, he ascribes this for a principal cause: Irascebatur levibus de causis, he was easily moved to anger. Ajax had no other beginning of his madness; and Charles the Sixth, that lunatic French king, fell into this misery, out of the extremity of his passion, desire of revenge and malice, [1735]incensed against the duke of Britain, he could neither eat, drink, nor sleep for some days together, and in the end, about the calends of July, 1392, he became mad upon his horseback, drawing his sword, striking such as came near him promiscuously, and so continued all the days of his life, Aemil., lib. 10. Gal. hist. Aegesippus de exid. urbis Hieros, l. 1. c. 37, hath such a story of Herod, that out of an angry fit, became mad, [1736]leaping out of his bed, he killed Jossippus, and played many such bedlam pranks, the whole court could not rule him for a long time after: sometimes he was sorry and repented, much grieved for that he had done, Postquam deferbuit ira, by and by outrageous again. In hot choleric bodies, nothing so soon causeth madness, as this passion of anger, besides many other diseases, as Pelesius observes, cap. 21. l. 1. de hum. affect. causis; Sanguinem imminuit, fel auget: and as [1737]Valesius controverts, Med. controv., lib. 5. contro. 8, many times kills them quite out. If this were the worst of this passion, it were more tolerable, [1738]but it ruins and subverts whole towns, [1739]cities, families, and kingdoms; Nulla pestis humano generi pluris stetit, saith Seneca, de Ira, lib. 1. No plague hath done mankind so much harm. Look into our histories, and you shall almost meet with no other subject, but what a company [1740]of harebrains have done in their rage. We may do well therefore to put this in our procession amongst the rest; From all blindness of heart, from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy, from envy, hatred and malice, anger, and all such pestiferous perturbations, good Lord deliver us. SUBSECT. X.—_Discontents, Cares, Miseries, &c. Causes_.