This horrible kind of melancholy” (for so he terms it) “had been often brought before him, and troubles and affrights commonly men and women, young and old of all sorts.” [2137]Hercules de Saxonia calls this kind of melancholy (ab agitatione spirituum) by a peculiar name, it comes from the agitation, motion, contraction, dilatation of spirits, not from any distemperature of humours, and produceth strong effects.  This terror is most usually caused, as [2138]Plutarch will have, “from some imminent danger, when a terrible object is at hand,” heard, seen, or conceived, [2139]"truly appearing, or in a [2140]dream:”  and many times the more sudden the accident, it is the more violent.

[2141] “Stat terror animis, et cor attonitum salit,
        Pavidumque trepidis palpitat venis jecur.”

       “Their soul’s affright, their heart amazed quakes,
        The trembling liver pants i’ th’ veins, and aches.”

Arthemedorus the grammarian lost his wits by the unexpected sight of a crocodile, Laurentius 7. de melan. [2142]The massacre at Lyons, 1572, in the reign of Charles IX., was so terrible and fearful, that many ran mad, some died, great-bellied women were brought to bed before their time, generally all affrighted aghast.  Many lose their wits [2143]"by the sudden sight of some spectrum or devil, a thing very common in all ages,” saith Lavater part 1. cap. 9. as Orestes did at the sight of the Furies, which appeared to him in black (as [2144]Pausanias records).  The Greeks call them [Greek:  mormolucheia], which so terrify their souls, or if they be but affrighted by some counterfeit devils in jest,

[2145]  ------“ut pueri trepidant, atque omnia caecis
In tenebris metuunt”------

as children in the dark conceive hobgoblins, and are so afraid, they are the worse for it all their lives.  Some by sudden fires, earthquakes, inundations, or any such dismal objects:  Themiscon the physician fell into a hydrophobia, by seeing one sick of that disease:  (Dioscorides l. 6. c. 33.) or by the sight of a monster, a carcase, they are disquieted many months following, and cannot endure the room where a corpse hath been, for a world would not be alone with a dead man, or lie in that bed many years after in which a man hath died.  At [2146]Basil many little children in the springtime went to gather flowers in a meadow at the town’s end, where a malefactor hung in gibbets; all gazing at it, one by chance flung a stone, and made it stir, by which accident, the children affrighted ran away; one slower than the rest, looking back, and seeing the stirred carcase wag towards her, cried out it came after, and was so terribly affrighted, that for many days she could not rest, eat, or sleep, she could not be pacified, but melancholy, died. [2147]In the same town another child, beyond the Rhine, saw a grave opened, and upon the sight of a carcase, was so troubled in mind that she could not be comforted, but a little