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.

Discontents, cares, crosses, miseries, or whatsoever it is, that shall cause any molestation of spirits, grief, anguish, and perplexity, may well be reduced to this head, (preposterously placed here in some men’s judgments they may seem,) yet in that Aristotle in his [1741]Rhetoric defines these cares, as he doth envy, emulation, &c. still by grief, I think I may well rank them in this irascible row; being that they are as the rest, both causes and symptoms of this disease, producing the like inconveniences, and are most part accompanied with anguish and pain.  The common etymology will evince it, Cura quasi cor uro, Dementes curae, insomnes curae, damnosae curae, tristes, mordaces, carnifices, &c. biting, eating, gnawing, cruel, bitter, sick, sad, unquiet, pale, tetric, miserable, intolerable cares, as the poets [1742]call them, worldly cares, and are as many in number as the sea sands. [1743]Galen, Fernelius, Felix Plater, Valescus de Taranta, &c., reckon afflictions, miseries, even all these contentions, and vexations of the mind, as principal causes, in that they take away sleep, hinder concoction, dry up the body, and consume the substance of it.  They are not so many in number, but their causes be as divers, and not one of a thousand free from them, or that can vindicate himself, whom that Ate dea,

[1744] “Per hominum capita molliter ambulans,
        Plantas pedum teneras habens:” 

       “Over men’s heads walking aloft,
        With tender feet treading so soft,”