AND FAMILY DISPENSATORY. 5 
whereby it comes to pafs that aged perfons excel thofe in underftanding that ate 
young, becaufe, as years increafe, moifture doth decreafe in the brain ; henee it fol- 
loweth, that melancholic perfons, that are afflicted with want, and fa? much, are 
wife and ingenions, for heavinefs and fafting are great driers: Splendor ficcus, aninues 
. fapientiffinus, vexatio dat inteliefium , “ Feat and draught refine the wir, affliction 
giveth underftanding ;* and that is the reafon that great perfons, who feed high, and 
take little or no care, that have nothing to vex them, are for the moit Part wot very 
wife. : 
Bealts that are of a dry temperature, as ants, bees, elephants, &c. are cunning : 
and ingenious; on the contrary, they that are of a moift conftitution are ftupid and 
without fpirit. Memory is feated in the hinder cell of the brain, as the grand ac- 
countant or regifter; fome fay its temperature is cold and dry, and that is thought 
to be the reafon why melancholic people have good memories ; others are of opinion 
that itis moift, becaufe children have better memories than old men ; men are more 
apt for memory in the morning, ‘by reafon of the moifture gained by fleep in the 
night ; but, let it be as it may, it is moft certain that thofe who have a good memory 
are not in general very wife. eaten, Leite tga ag 
~ {tis true, that many have beenexcellent in this faculty. Seneca repeated twothou~ _ 
fand names as they were firft fpoken 3 he alfo, hearing two hundred verfes, rehearfed : 
them, and began at the laft. Cyrus and Scipio knew every foldier’s name in their’ 
armies. Mithridates learned the languages of two-and-twenty nations. E(dras the 
prieft had the whole Jewifh doctrine by heart. Julius Cefar would diate to four 
at the fame time ; and, that which is more ftrange, Pliny would dictate to one, hear 
another, and read at the fame inftant. As thefe were fo excellent and acute in me- 
mory, others were as dull: Atticus could never learn the letters of the alphabet by 
heart ; others could not count above four. It is faid, that Theodore Beza, two 
years before he died, as helanguifhed, his mind grew fo feeble that he forgot things 
prefent, yet he held thofe things which were printed in his mind before-time, when 
his underftanding and memory were good. What hall.we fay of Meffalla Cornivus, 
who forgot his own name? or Francifeus Barbarus, of Athens, a very learned man in 
the Greek tongue, who, having received a blow on the head with a ftone, forgot 
his learning, which he had fpent the greateft part of his life-time upon, yet remem- 
bered all things elfe ? ‘Thefe things are brought to pafs either by the ftrength or 
debility of mer.’s genitures, and from direttions and accidents thence proceeding, 
Witand underitanding, and all the faculties of the foul, depend on certain tem- 
Perament; and hence it comes to pafs that thofe who are acute and wife in e 
things are ftupid and dul in others. | wae, 
27. . 
C 
