lest by applying that which he reads to himself, aggravating, appropriating
things generally spoken, to his own person (as melancholy men for the most
part do) he trouble or hurt himself, and get in conclusion more harm than
good. I advise them therefore warily to peruse that tract, _Lapides
loquitur_ (so said [175]Agrippa _de occ. Phil._) _et caveant lectores ne
cerebrum iis excutiat_. The rest I doubt not they may securely read, and to
their benefit. But I am over-tedious, I proceed.

Of the necessity and generality of this which I have said, if any man
doubt, I shall desire him to make a brief survey of the world, as [176]
Cyprian adviseth Donat, "supposing himself to be transported to the top of
some high mountain, and thence to behold the tumults and chances of this
wavering world, he cannot choose but either laugh at, or pity it." S.
Hierom out of a strong imagination, being in the wilderness, conceived with
himself, that he then saw them dancing in Rome; and if thou shalt either
conceive, or climb to see, thou shalt soon perceive that all the world is
mad, that it is melancholy, dotes; that it is (which Epichthonius
Cosmopolites expressed not many years since in a map) made like a fool's
head (with that motto, _Caput helleboro dignum_) a crazed head, _cavea
stultorum_, a fool's paradise, or as Apollonius, a common prison of gulls,
cheaters, flatterers, &c. and needs to be reformed. Strabo in the ninth
book of his geography, compares Greece to the picture of a man, which
comparison of his, Nic. Gerbelius in his exposition of Sophianus' map,
approves; the breast lies open from those Acroceraunian hills in Epirus, to
the Sunian promontory in Attica; Pagae and Magaera are the two shoulders;
that Isthmus of Corinth the neck; and Peloponnesus the head. If this
allusion hold, 'tis sure a mad head; Morea may be Moria; and to speak what
I think, the inhabitants of modern Greece swerve as much from reason and
true religion at this day, as that Morea doth from the picture of a man.
Examine the rest in like sort, and you shall find that kingdoms and