on the other side, and many even in this our town of Louvain, that it is likely to be so. [4689]One thing I will add, that I suppose that in no age past, I know not by what destiny of this unhappy time, have there ever appeared or showed themselves so many lecherous devils, satyrs, and genii, as in this of ours, as appears by the daily narrations, and judicial sentences upon record.”  Read more of this question in Plutarch, vit.  Numae, Austin de civ.  Dei. lib. 15. Wierus, lib. 3. de praestig.  Daem. Giraldus Cambrensis, itinerar.  Camb. lib. 1. Malleus malefic. quaest. 5. part. 1. Jacobus Reussus, lib. 5. cap. 6. fol. 54. Godelman, lib. 2. cap. 4. Erastus, Valesius de sacra philo. cap. 40. John Nider, Fornicar. lib. 5. cap. 9. Stroz.  Cicogna. lib. 3. cap. 3. Delrio, Lipsius Bodine, daemonol. lib. 2. cap. 7. Pererius in Gen. lib. 8. in 6. cap. ver. 2. King James, &c.

SUBSECT.  II.—­How Love tyranniseth over men.  Love, or Heroical Melancholy, his definition, part affected.

You have heard how this tyrant Love rageth with brute beasts and spirits; now let us consider what passions it causeth amongst men. [4690]_Improbe amor quid non mortalia pectora cogis_?  How it tickles the hearts of mortal men, Horresco referens,—­I am almost afraid to relate, amazed, [4691]and ashamed, it hath wrought such stupendous and prodigious effects, such foul offences.  Love indeed (I may not deny) first united provinces, built cities, and by a perpetual generation makes and preserves mankind, propagates the church; but if it rage it is no more love, but burning lust, a disease, frenzy, madness, hell. [4692]_Est orcus ille, vis est immedicabilis, est rabies insana_; ’tis no virtuous habit this, but a vehement perturbation of the mind, a monster of nature, wit, and art, as Alexis in [4693]Athenaeus sets it out, viriliter audax, muliebriter timidium, furore praeceps, labore infractum, mel felleum, blanda percussio, &c.  It subverts kingdoms, overthrows cities, towns, families, mars, corrupts, and makes a massacre of men; thunder and lightning, wars, fires, plagues, have not done that mischief to mankind, as this burning lust, this brutish passion.  Let Sodom and Gomorrah, Troy, (which Dares Phrygius, and Dictis Cretensis will make good) and I know not how many cities bear record,—­et fuit ante Helenam, &c., all succeeding ages will subscribe:  Joanna of Naples in Italy, Fredegunde and Brunhalt in France, all histories are full of these basilisks.  Besides those daily monomachies, murders, effusion of blood, rapes, riot, and immoderate expense, to satisfy their lusts, beggary, shame, loss, torture, punishment, disgrace, loathsome diseases that proceed from thence, worse than calentures and pestilent fevers, those often gouts, pox, arthritis, palsies, cramps, sciatica, convulsions, aches, combustions, &c., which torment the body, that feral melancholy which crucifies the soul in this life, and everlastingly torments in the world to come.