was such a fearful earthquake about eleven o’clock in the night (as [2155]Beroaldus in his book de terrae motu, hath commended to posterity) that all the city trembled, the people thought the world was at an end, actum de mortalibus, such a fearful noise, it made such a detestable smell, the inhabitants were infinitely affrighted, and some ran mad. Audi rem atrocem, et annalibus memorandam (mine author adds), hear a strange story, and worthy to be chronicled:  I had a servant at the same time called Fulco Argelanus, a bold and proper man, so grievously terrified with it, that he [2156]was first melancholy, after doted, at last mad, and made away himself.  At [2157]Fuscinum in Japona “there was such an earthquake, and darkness on a sudden, that many men were offended with headache, many overwhelmed with sorrow and melancholy.  At Meacum whole streets and goodly palaces were overturned at the same time, and there was such a hideous noise withal, like thunder, and filthy smell, that their hair stared for fear, and their hearts quaked, men and beasts were incredibly terrified.  In Sacai, another city, the same earthquake was so terrible unto them, that many were bereft of their senses; and others by that horrible spectacle so much amazed, that they knew not what they did.”  Blasius a Christian, the reporter of the news, was so affrighted for his part, that though it were two months after, he was scarce his own man, neither could he drive the remembrance of it out of his mind.  Many times, some years following, they will tremble afresh at the [2158]remembrance or conceit of such a terrible object, even all their lives long, if mention be made of it.  Cornelius Agrippa relates out of Gulielmus Parisiensis, a story of one, that after a distasteful purge which a physician had prescribed unto him, was so much moved, [2159]"that at the very sight of physic he would be distempered,” though he never so much as smelled to it, the box of physic long after would give him a purge; nay, the very remembrance of it did effect it; [2160]"like travellers and seamen,” saith Plutarch, “that when they have been sanded, or dashed on a rock, for ever after fear not that mischance only, but all such dangers whatsoever.”

SUBSECT.  IV.—­Scoffs, Calumnies, bitter Jests, how they cause Melancholy.

It is an old saying, [2161]"A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword:”  and many men are as much galled with a calumny, a scurrilous and bitter jest, a libel, a pasquil, satire, apologue, epigram, stage-play or the like, as with any misfortune whatsoever.  Princes and potentates, that are otherwise happy, and have all at command, secure and free, quibus potentia sceleris impunitatem fecit, are grievously vexed with these pasquilling libels, and satires:  they fear a railing [2162]Aretine, more than an enemy in the field, which made most princes of his time (as some relate) “allow him a liberal pension, that he should not tax them in his satires.”