mutam praesepe, a table without music a manger:  for “the concert of musicians at a banquet is a carbuncle set in gold; and as the signet of an emerald well trimmed with gold, so is the melody of music in a pleasant banquet.”  Ecclus. xxxii. 5, 6. [3489]Louis the Eleventh, when he invited Edward the Fourth to come to Paris, told him that as a principal part of his entertainment, he should hear sweet voices of children, Ionic and Lydian tunes, exquisite music, he should have a —­, and the cardinal of Bourbon to be his confessor, which he used as a most plausible argument:  as to a sensual man indeed it is. [3490] Lucian in his book, de saltatione, is not ashamed to confess that he took infinite delight in singing, dancing, music, women’s company, and such like pleasures:  “and if thou” (saith he) “didst but hear them play and dance, I know thou wouldst be so well pleased with the object, that thou wouldst dance for company thyself, without doubt thou wilt be taken with it.”  So Scaliger ingenuously confesseth, exercit. 274. [3491]"I am beyond all measure affected with music, I do most willingly behold them dance, I am mightily detained and allured with that grace and comeliness of fair women, I am well pleased to be idle amongst them.”  And what young man is not?  As it is acceptable and conducing to most, so especially to a melancholy man.  Provided always, his disease proceed not originally from it, that he be not some light inamarato, some idle fantastic, who capers in conceit all the day long, and thinks of nothing else, but how to make jigs, sonnets, madrigals, in commendation of his mistress.  In such cases music is most pernicious, as a spur to a free horse will make him run himself blind, or break his wind; Incitamentum enim amoris musica, for music enchants, as Menander holds, it will make such melancholy persons mad, and the sound of those jigs and hornpipes will not be removed out of the ears a week after. [3492]Plato for this reason forbids music and wine to all young men, because they are most part amorous, ne ignis addatur igni, lest one fire increase another.  Many men are melancholy by hearing music, but it is a pleasing melancholy that it causeth; and therefore to such as are discontent, in woe, fear, sorrow, or dejected, it is a most present remedy:  it expels cares, alters their grieved minds, and easeth in an instant.  Otherwise, saith [3493]Plutarch, Musica magis dementat quam vinum; music makes some men mad as a tiger; like Astolphos’ horn in Ariosto; or Mercury’s golden wand in Homer, that made some wake, others sleep, it hath divers effects:  and [3494]Theophrastus right well prophesied, that diseases were either procured by music, or mitigated.

SUBSECT.  IV.—­Mirth and merry company, fair objects, remedies.