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21 Jul 2008 at 6:17pm Unknown length - Jul 21, 2008 2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction film directed by Stanley Kubrick, written by Kubrick & Arthur C. Clarke. The film deals with thematic elements of human evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, & extraterrestrial life, & is notable for its scientific realism, pioneering special effects, ambiguous & often surreal imagery, sound in place of traditional narrative techniques, & minimal use of dialogue. Despite receiving mixed reviews upon release, 2001: A Space Odyssey is today recognized by critics & audiences as one of the greatest films ever made; the 2002 Sight & Sound poll of critics ranked it among the top ten films of all time. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, & received one for visual effects. In 1991, it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress & selected for preservation in their National Film Registry. The title sequence begins with an image of the Earth rising over the Moon, while the Sun rises over the Earth. Over images of an African desert, a caption reads "The Dawn of Man". A tribe of prehistoric apeomen is struggling to survive in the dry desert. One morning, a mysterious black rectangular monolith appears near their habitat & is examined by the nervous apes. Following this encounter, a lone apeoman (Daniel Richter) invents the first tool when he picks up a bone from a pile & discovers he can use it as a club to crush other bones. The toolousing tribe is seen to be then eating the meat of a tapir which they killed, whereas they had previously been eating vegetation. The apeoman, now standing partially upright, leads the tribe in defense of their waterhole against another tribe, using the new weapon to club an enemy ape to death. The victorious apeoman throws his weapon into the air, at which point the film jumps to the future, in a match cut that links the tumbling bone to an orbital satellite. (According to the first draft of the screenplay, the novel, Jerome Agel's book "The Making of Kubrick's 2001" & the DVD audio commentary, this & subsequent satellites seen before the PanAm are weapons platforms from several different countries. On the DVD actor Gary Lockwood observes that as the bone was used by the apes as a weapon, this makes the jump cut a weaponotooweapon cut. The international symbol for nuclear radiation appears on the back of one of the devices although this could be construed to mean it uses nuclear power.) A Pan American Spaceplane carrying only one passenger, Dr. Heywood R. Floyd (William Sylvester) docks with the orbiting Space Station 5. Floyd makes a videophone call from the station to his daughter on Earth (played by Vivian Kubrick). He then encounters an old friend, Elena, one of a group of Soviet scientists. When he says he is traveling to Clavius, one of the Soviets, Dr. Andrei Smyslov (Leonard Rossiter), asks why no one has been able to contact anyone there, mentioning that Clavius had even denied emergency landing permission to a Soviet shuttle, in violation of international agreements. Floyd feigns surprise, but when Smyslov presses him for further details, alluding to "very reliable intelligence reports" that a serious epidemic of unknown origin has broken out at Clavius, & expresses concern that the epidemic might spread to the Soviet base, Floyd replies that he is "not at liberty" to comment. Floyd travels to Clavius Base on a lunar shuttle. At the Base, Floyd meets scientists & administrators & speaks about the importance of hiding the true reason for the base's suspicious quarantine. He states that the cover story of an epidemic & a baseowide communications blackoout will remain in effect until their superiors on Earth decide otherwise. He reminds them of "the potential for cultural shock & social disorientation" that the discovery presents. Though ostensibly there to assess the situation & make a report, Floyd informs those present that new security oaths are required from all personnel. During a later moonbus ride to the excavation, a discussion between Floyd & a base administrator reveals they have discovered an alien object, "deliberately buried" on the Moon four million years earlier. At the dig site, the scientists approach an identical monolith to that found by the manoapes; like them, Floyd strokes its smooth surface. The scientists gather around it for a group photo but are interrupted when a continuous highopitched tone is picked up by their radio receivers, apparently triggered by the first rays of the sun to reach the monolith since its burial. Three of the Discovery One crew are in a state of hibernation in order to conserve life support resources for the voyage. Three of the Discovery One crew are in a state of hibernation in order to conserve life support resources for the voyage. At this point, a caption reads "Jupiter Mission: Eighteen Months Later". On board the spaceship Discovery One, bound for Jupiter, are two mission pilots, astronauts Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) & Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood), & three scientists "sleeping" in cryogenic hibernation. Dave & Frank watch a BBC television program about themselves, in which the "sixth member" of the crew, the HAL 9000 supercomputer (voiced by Douglas Rain), is introduced & interviewed. The interview reveals that the supercomputer is the pinnacle in artificial intelligence, with an errorofree performance record. HAL 9000 is designed to communicate & interact like a human, & even mimics (or reproduces) human emotions; in fact the astronauts have learned to treat it like another crewman, addressing it as "Hal". During an informal conversation with Dave, HAL raises concerns about the unusual secrecy surrounding the mission, & repeats rumors about "something being dug up on the moon." When Dave suggests that HAL's quizzical conversation is actually part of his "crew psychology report", HAL abruptly reports an imminent equipment malfunction. He claims to have detected a defect in a component of the ship's communications system. Dave exits the Discovery in an EVA pod to retrieve & replace the faulty AEo35 unit, but upon detailed examination no fault can be found. Mission controllers back on Earth assert that HAL is "in error in predicting the fault", something unheard of for the 9000 series. HAL suggests another EVA mission to restore the part & wait for it to fail: this will determine the problem. Hiding their concern, Dave & Frank retreat to a pod to discuss, in secret, HAL's questionable reliability. They finally agree to "disconnect" him should the AEo35 not fail, as he predicted. Unbeknownst to them, however, HAL is reading their lips. As Dave watches from inside Discovery, Frank exits in a pod to put back the original AEo35. While Frank is performing the EVA, HAL takes control of the empty pod, & accelerates it at Frank, severing his oxygen hose & sending his body tumbling in space. Dave hurriedly exits the ship in another pod to rescue Frank, forgetting to bring his space helmet. While Dave is outside, HAL kills the three hibernating scientists by deactivating their life support systems. Upon returning to the ship with Frank's lifeless body, Dave is refused reentry into the ship by HAL. HAL reveals that he knows of Frank & Dave's plan to disconnect him, & asserts that the mission is "too important" to allow any human to jeopardize it. HAL terminates the conversation. After releasing Frank's body, Dave opens an air lock, & activates the pod's emergency hatch bolts. The explosive decompression propels him into the airlock, exposed to the vacuum of space without a helmet, but he manages to close & pressurize the airlock. Bowman (here seen in his space suit, from above) enters HAL 9000's Central Core in the Discovery to disconnect his "higher functions." Bowman (here seen in his space suit, from above) enters HAL 9000's Central Core in the Discovery to disconnect his "higher functions." Safely inside the ship, Dave enters HAL's 'Logic Memory Center'. As HAL futilely attempts to negotiate with him, Dave proceeds to disconnect his higher brain functions. HAL pleads & protests his termination, slowly regresses to past memories, sings a song he learned during his initial programming, & finally falls silent. Suddenly, a preorecorded video briefing by Dr. Floyd plays, explaining the true nature of the mission?to investigate the signal sent to Jupiter from the alien artifact on the Moon. Floyd discloses that the secret mission had been known only to HAL until the ship's arrival in Jupiter space. The Star Child looking at the Earth The Star Child looking at the Earth A caption reads "Jupiter & beyond the Infinite". A third monolith is seen in orbit around Jupiter. As the planet & its moons & the monolith appear to align, Dave exits Discovery One in a pod to investigate. He appears to travel across vast distances of space & time through a "Star Gate", a tunnel of colorful light & imagery & sound. After passing over the landscape of an alien world, Bowman arrives in a futuristic room containing Louis XVIostyle decor. As he walks about the room, he repeatedly sees himself at later stages of aging, first in his spacesuit, then in an ornate dressing robe, sitting down to a welloappointed meal. The older Dave accidentally knocks his glass on the floor, smashing it & breaking the silence. Looking up from the broken glass, he sees himself lying on what appears to be his deathbed, at the foot of which appears a final monolith. Dave slowly reaches out to it & is transformed into a fetusolike being enclosed in a transparent orb of light?the "Star Child". The film suddenly returns to space near the Moon & Earth. Floating in space, the Star Child gazes at Earth. Cast Keir Dullea as Dave Bowman Keir Dullea as Dave Bowman Keir Dullea as Dr. David Bowman Gary Lockwood as Dr. Frank Poole William Sylvester as Dr. Heywood R. Floyd Daniel Richter as MoonoWatcher Leonard Rossiter as Dr. Andrei Smyslov Margaret Tyzack as Elena Robert Beatty as Dr. Ralph Halvorsen Sean Sullivan as Dr. Bill Michaels Douglas Rain as HAL 9000 (voice) Frank A. Miller as Mission controller (voice) Bill Weston as Astronaut Ed Bishop as Lunar shuttle captain (as Edward Bishop) Vivian Kubrick as Floyd's daughter Glenn Beck as Astronaut Alan Gifford as Poole's father Ann Gillis as Poole's mother Production Writing Shortly after completing Dr Strangelove (1964), Stanley Kubrick became fascinated by the possibility of extraterrestrial life, & determined to make "the proverbial good science fiction movie". Searching for a suitable collaborator in the science fiction community, Kubrick was advised to seek out Arthur C. Clarke by a mutual acquaintance, Columbia Pictures staffer Roger Caras. Although convinced that Clarke was "a recluse, a nut who lives in a tree", Kubrick agreed that Caras would cable the Ceylonobased author with the film proposal. Clarke's cabled response stated that he was "frightfully interested in working with enfant terrible", & added "what makes Kubrick think I'm a recluse?" In early conversations, Kubrick & Clarke jokingly called their project How the Solar System Was Won, an allusion to the 1962 Cinerama epic How the West Was Won. Like that film, Kubrick's production would be divided into distinct episodes. Clarke considered adapting a number of his earlier stories before selecting "The Sentinel", published in 1950, as the starting point for the film. The collaborators originally planned to develop a novel first, free of the constraints of a normal script, & then to write the screenplay; they envisaged that the final writing credits would be "Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick & Arthur C. Clarke, based on a novel by Arthur C. Clarke & Stanley Kubrick", to reflect their preoeminence in their respective fields. However, in practice the cinematic ideas required for the screenplay developed parallel to the novel, with crossofertilisation between the two. In the end, the screenplay credits were shared while the novel, released shortly after the film, was attributed to Clarke alone, but Clarke wrote later that "the nearest approximation to the complicated truth" is that the screenplay should be credited to "Kubrick & Clarke" & the novel to "Clarke & Kubrick". On 22 February 1965, MGM announced it was backing Kubrick's new science fiction film under the title Journey Beyond the Stars. Interviewed by The New Yorker shortly afterwards, Kubrick compared the proposed film to "a space Odyssey", & in April he officially changed the title to 2001: A Space Odyssey. The date of 2001 was said to allude to Fritz Lang's Metropolis, which was set in 2026. Arthur C. Clarke kept a diary throughout his involvement with 2001, excerpts of which were published in 1972 as The Lost Worlds of 2001. Clarke's diary reveals that by the time backing was secured for Journey Beyond the Stars in early 1965, the writers still had no firm idea of what would happen to Bowman after the Star Gate sequence, though as early as 17 October 1964 Kubrick had come up with what Clarke called a "wild idea of slightly fag robots who create a Victorian environment to put our heroes at their ease". Initially all of Discovery's astronauts were to survive the journey; a decision to leave Bowman as the sole survivor & have him regress to infancy was agreed by 3 October 1965. The computer HAL was originally to have been called "Athena", from the Greek goddess of wisdom, with a feminine voice & persona. Clarke noted that, contrary to popular rumor, it was a complete coincidence that each of the letters of HAL's name immediately preceded those of IBM. Filming Filming of 2001 began December 29, 1965 in Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, England. The studio was chosen because it could house the 60'x 120'x 60' pit for the Tycho crater excavation scene, the first to be shot. From 1966, filming was at MGMoBritish Studios in Borehamwood, from where the production was run to facilitate special effects filming; it was described as a "huge throbbing nerve center? with much the same frenetic atmosphere as a Cape Kennedy blockhouse during the final stages of Countdown." The film was planned to be photographed in 3ofilmostrip Cinerama (like How The West Was Won), but was changed to Super Panavision 70 (which uses a singleostrip 65 mm negative) on the advice of special photographic effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull, due to distortion problems with the 3ostrip system; color processing & 35 mm release prints was done using Technicolor's dye transfer process. The 70 mm prints were made by MGM Laboratories, Inc. or Metrocolor. In March of 1968, Kubrick began editing the film, making his final cuts just before the film's general release in April 1968. The budget was $4.5 million over the initial $6.0 million budget, & 16 months behind schedule. Special effects This film pioneered retroreflective matting (front projection) used in the African scenes where apes learn to use tools. Static landscape transparency images were projected through a partlyosilvered mirror placed diagonally before the camera. The projected landscape image illuminates both the actors & the retrooreflective glassobead background screen. The projected landscape is invisible on the actors because it is dimmer than the scene illumination. The glassobead background screen selectively reflects the landscape & actors' images to the camera, passing through the mirror & photographed as the background of the scene the audience view. The projected background image is reflected in the eyes of the leopard, because the feline retina is highly reflective. Front projection produced more realistic images than did other methods of the time; today, computeroprocessed bluescreen techniques have replaced it. Director of Photography Geoffrey Unsworth did not want the film to be complicated with printing effects such as blue screen, so the space travel effects were done inocamera. The model of the Discovery One space craft was moved along a track, mechanically linked to the camera. On the first pass, the model was unlit, masking the starofield. The model & film were returned to the start position, & on the second pass, the model was lit. For the third pass, motion picture frames were projected onto retroreflective screens in the model's windows, showing the interior of the ship. The result was a film negative that was as sharp as live footage. Veteran technicians of previous science fiction films were puzzled by how realistic the effects of floating in space were when Dave or Frank are outside the Discovery. These were accomplished by having them be suspended from a ceiling (as was common in simulating spacewalking) & having the camera underneath them pointing straight up, thus eliminating the common effect of a notable upodown pull on an astronaut. The colored lights in the StarGate sequence were accomplished by slitoscan photography of moving images of painting. The shots of various nebulaolike phenomena were colored paints in water in a dark room. Deleted scenes Kubrick filmed several scenes that were deleted from the final film. These include a schoolroom on the moon base; Floyd buying a bush baby from a department store, via videophone, for his daughter; additional space walks; & astronaut Bowman retrieving a spare part from an octagonal corridor. The most notable cut was a 10ominute blackoandowhite opening sequence featuring interviews with actual scientists discussing extraterrestrial life, which Kubrick removed after an early screening for MGM executives. Release The film's world premiere was on April 2, 1968, at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C.. Kubrick deleted 19 minutes from the film just before the film's general release on 6 April 1968. It was released in 70mm format, with a sixotrack stereo magnetic soundtrack, & projected in the 2.21:1 aspect ratio. In autumn 1968, it was generally released in 35mm anamorphic format, with either a fourotrack magnetic stereo soundtrack or an optical monaural soundtrack. The original 70 mm release was advertised as Cinerama in cinemas equipped with special projection optics & a deeply curved screen. In standard cinemas, the film was identified as a 70 mm production. The original release of 2001: A Space Odyssey in 70 mm Cinerama with sixotrack sound (via Klipschorno & Odysseyomodel cinema speakers) played continually for two years in The Glendale Theater, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, a feat cited by Arthur C. Clarke in the nonofiction book The Lost Worlds of 2001. MGM also published letterbox laserdisc editions (including an updated edition with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound). There also was a special edition laserdisc from The Criterion Collection in the CAV format. In 1999, it was reoreleased in VHS, & in 2001 as part of the "Stanley Kubrick Collection" in both VHS & DVD formats with remastered sound & picture. It has been released on Region 1 DVD four times: once by MGM Home Entertainment in 1998 & thrice by Warner Home Video in 1999, 2001, & 2007. The MGM release had a booklet, the film, trailer, & an interview with Arthur C. Clarke, & the soundtrack was remastered in 5.1 surround sound. The 1999 Warner Bros. release omitted the booklet, yet had a reorelease trailer. The 2001 release contained the reorelease trailer, the film in the original 2.21:1 aspect ratio, digitally reomastered from the original 70 mm print, & the soundtrack remixed in 5.1 surround sound. A limited edition DVD included a booklet, 70 mm frame, & a new soundtrack CD of the film's actual (unreleased) music tracks, & a sampling of HAL's dialogue. Warner Home Video released a 2oDVD Special Edition on October 23, 2007 as part of their latest set of Kubrick reissues. The DVD was released on its own & as part of a revised Stanley Kubrick box set which contains new Special Edition versions of A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut, Full Metal Jacket, & the documentary A Life in Pictures. Additionally, the film was released in high definition on both HD DVD & Bluoray. Reaction Upon release, 2001 polarized critical opinion, receiving both ecstatic praise & vehemently negative criticism. Some critics viewed the original 160ominute cut shown at premieres in Washington, New York & Los Angeles, while others saw the 19 minutes shorter general release version that was in theaters from April 6, 1968 onwards. In The New Yorker, Penelope Gilliatt said it was "some kind of great film, & an unforgettable endeavor?The film is hypnotically entertaining, & it is funny without once being gaggy, but it is also rather harrowing." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times opined that it was "the picture that science fiction fans of every age & in every corner of the world have prayed (sometimes forlornly) that the industry might some day give them. It is an ultimate statement of the science fiction film, an awesome realization of the spatial future?it is a milestone, a landmark for a spacemark, in the art of film." Louise Sweeney of The Christian Science Monitor felt that 2001 was "a brilliant intergalactic satire on modern technology. It's also a dazzling 160ominute tour on the Kubrick filmship through the universe out there beyond our earth." Philip French wrote that the film was "perhaps the first multiomillionodollar supercolossal movie since D.W. Griffith's Intolerance fifty years ago which can be regarded as the work of one man?Space Odyssey is important as the highowater mark of scienceofiction movie making, or at least of the genre's futuristic branch." The Boston Globe's review indicated that it was "the world's most extraordinary film. Nothing like it has ever been shown in Boston before or, for that matter, anywhere?The film is as exciting as the discovery of a new dimension in life." Roger Ebert gave the film four stars in his original review, believing the film "succeeds magnificently on a cosmic scale." Time provided at least seven different minioreviews of the film in various issues in 1968, each one slightly more positive than the preceding one; in the final review dated December 27, 1968, the magazine called 2001 "an epic film about the history & future of mankind, brilliantly directed by Stanley Kubrick. The special effects are mindblowing." However Pauline Kael said it was "a monumentally unimaginative movie", & Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic called it "a film that is so dull, it even dulls our interest in the technical ingenuity for the sake of which Kubrick has allowed it to become dull." Renata Adler of The New York Times wrote that it was "somewhere between hypnotic & immensely boring." Variety's 'Robe' believed the film was a "Big, beautiful, but plodding sciofi epic?A major achievement in cinematography & special effects, 2001 lacks dramatic appeal to a large degree & only conveys suspense after the halfway mark." Andrew Sarris called it "one of the grimmest films I have ever seen in my life?2001 is a disaster because it is much too abstract to make its abstract points." (Sarris reversed his opinion upon a second viewing of the film, & declared "2001 is indeed a major work by a major artist.") John Simon felt it was "a regrettable failure, although not a total one. This film is fascinating when it concentrates on apes or machines?and dreadful when it deals with the inobetweens: humans?2001, for all its lively visual & mechanical spectacle, is a kind of spaceoSpartacus and, more pretentious still, a shaggy God story." The "Star Gate" sequence, one of many groundbreaking visual effects. The "Star Gate" sequence, one of many groundbreaking visual effects. 2001 earned one Academy Award for Best Visual Effects & was nominated for Best Art Direction, Best Director (Kubrick), & Original Screenplay (Kubrick, Clarke). Top film lists 2001 was number 22 on AFI's 100 Years? 100 Movies, was named number 40 on its 100 Years, 100 Thrills, included on its 100 Years, 100 Quotes ("Open the pod bay doors, HAL."), HAL 9000 is the # 13 villain in the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes & Villains, is the only science fiction film to make the Sight & Sound poll for ten best movies, & tops the Online Film Critics Society list of "greatest science fiction films of all time." In 1991, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress & selected for preservation in their National Film Registry. Other lists that include the film are 50 Films to See Before You Die (#6), The Village Voice 100 Best Films of the 20th Century (#11), the Sight & Sound Top Ten poll (#6), & Roger Ebert's Top Ten (1968) (#2). In 1995, the Vatican named it as one of the 45 best films ever made (and included it in a subolist of the "Top Ten Art Movies" of all time.) More recently, 2001 was named number one by the American Film Institute on their 10 Top 10 special in the Science Fiction category. 28 Jun 2008 at 12:26am 0 sec - Jun 28, 2008 ] and is again eftsoons aloft in Jupiter's orb; and [3088]other sufficient reasons, far above the moon: exploding in the meantime that element of fire, those fictitious first watery movers, those heavens I mean above the firmament, which Delrio, Lodovicus Imola, Patricius, and many of the fathers affirm; those monstrous orbs of eccentrics, and _Eccentre Epicycles deserentes_. Which howsoever Ptolemy, Alhasen, Vitellio, Purbachius, Maginus, Clavius, and many of their associates, stiffly maintain to be real orbs, eccentric, concentric, circles aequant, &c. are absurd and ridiculous. For who is so mad to think that there should be so many circles, like subordinate wheels in a clock, all impenetrable and hard, as they feign, add and subtract at their pleasure. [3089]Maginus makes eleven heavens, subdivided into their orbs and circles, and all too little to serve those particular appearances: Fracastorius, seventy-two homocentrics; Tycho Brahe, Nicholas Ramerus, Heliseus Roeslin, have peculiar hypotheses of their own inventions; and they be but inventions, as most of them acknowledge, as we admit of equators, tropics, colures, circles arctic and antarctic, for doctrine's sake (though Ramus thinks them all unnecessary), they will have them supposed only for method and order. Tycho hath feigned I know not how many subdivisions of epicycles in epicycles, &c., to calculate and express the moon's motion: but when all is done, as a supposition, and no otherwise; not (as he holds) hard, impenetrable, subtile, transparent, &c., or making music, as Pythagoras maintained of old, and Robert Constantine of late, but still, quiet, liquid, open, &c. If the heavens then be penetrable, as these men deliver, and no lets, it were not amiss in this aerial progress, to make wings and fly up, which that Turk in Busbequius made his fellow-citizens in Constantinople believe he would perform: and some new-fangled wits, methinks, should some time or other find out: or if that may not be, yet with a Galileo's glass, or Icaromenippus' wings in Lucian, command the spheres and heavens, and see what is done amongst them. Whether there be generation and corruption, as some think, by reason of ethereal comets, that in Cassiopea, 1572, that in Cygno, 1600, that in Sagittarius, 1604, and many like, which by no means Jul. Caesar la Galla, that Italian philosopher, in his physical disputation with Galileis _de phenomenis in orbe lunae, cap. 9._ will admit: or that they were created _ab initio_, and show themselves at set times. and as [3090]Helisaeus Roeslin contends, have poles, axle-trees, circles of their own, and regular motions. For, _non pereunt, sed minuuntur et disparent_, [3091]Blancanus holds they come and go by fits, casting their tails still from the sun: some of them, as a burning-glass, projects the sunbeams from it; though not always neither: for sometimes a comet casts his tail from Venus, as Tycho observes. And as [3092]Helisaeus Roeslin of some others, from the moon, with little stars about them _ad stuporem astronomorum; cum multis aliis in coelo miraculis_, all which argue with those Medicean, Austrian, and Burbonian stars, that the heaven of the planets is indistinct, pure, and open, in which the planets move _certis legibus ac metis_. Examine likewise, _An coelum sit coloratum_? Whether the stars be of that bigness, distance, as astronomers relate, so many in [3093]number, 1026, or 1725, as J. Bayerus; or as some Rabbins, 29,000 myriads; or as Galileo discovers by his glasses, infinite, and that _via lactea_, a confused light of small stars, like so many nails in a door: or all in a row, like those 12,000 isles of the Maldives in the Indian ocean? Whether the least visible star in the eighth sphere be eighteen times bigger than the earth; and as Tycho calculates, 14,000 semi-diameters distant from it? Whether they be thicker parts of the orbs, as Aristotle delivers: or so many habitable worlds, as Democritus? Whether they have light of their own, or from the sun, or give light round, as Patritius discourseth? _An aeque distent a centra mundi_? Whether light be of their essence; and that light be a substance or an accident? Whether they be hot by themselves, or by accident cause heat? Whether there be such a precession of the equinoxes as Copernicus holds, or that the eighth sphere move? _An bene philosophentur_, R. Bacon and J. Dee, _Aphorism. de multiplicatione specierum_? Whether there be any such images ascending with each degree of the zodiac in the east, as Aliacensis feigns? _An aqua super coelum_? as Patritius and the schoolmen will, a crystalline [3094]watery heaven, which is [3095] certainly to be understood of that in the middle region? for otherwise, if at Noah's flood the water came from thence, it must be above a hundred years falling down to us, as [3096]some calculate. Besides, _An terra sit animata_? which some so confidently believe, with Orpheus, Hermes, Averroes, from which all other souls of men, beasts, devils, plants, fishes, &c. are derived, and into which again, after some revolutions, as Plato in his Timaeus, Plotinus in his Enneades more largely discuss, they return (see Chalcidius and Bennius, Plato's commentators), as all philosophical matter, _in materiam primam_. Keplerus, Patritius, and some other Neoterics, have in part revived this opinion. And that every star in heaven hath a soul, angel or intelligence to animate or move it, &c. Or to omit all smaller controversies, as matters of less moment, and examine that main paradox, of the earth's motion, now so much in question: Aristarchus Samius, Pythagoras maintained it of old, Democritus and many of their scholars, Didacus Astunica, Anthony Fascarinus, a Carmelite, and some other commentators, will have Job to insinuate as much, _cap. 9. ver. 4._ _Qui commovet terram de loco suo_, &c., and that this one place of scripture makes more for the earth's motion than all the other prove against it; whom Pineda confutes most contradict. Howsoever, it is revived since by Copernicus, not as a truth, but a supposition, as he himself confesseth in the preface to pope Nicholas, but now maintained in good earnest by [3097] Calcagninus, Telesius, Kepler, Rotman, Gilbert, Digges, Galileo, Campanella, and especially by [3098]Lansbergius, _naturae, rationi, et veritati consentaneum_, by Origanus, and some [3099]others of his followers. For if the earth be the centre of the world, stand still, and the heavens move, as the most received [3100]opinion is, which they call _inordinatam coeli dispositionem_, though stiffly maintained by Tycho, Ptolemeus, and their adherents, _quis ille furor_? &c. what fury is that, saith [3101]Dr. Gilbert, _satis animose_, as Cabeus notes, that shall drive the heavens about with such incomprehensible celerity in twenty-four hours, when as every point of the firmament, and in the equator, must needs move (so [3102]Clavius calculates) 176,660 in one 246th part of an hour, and an arrow out of a bow must go seven times about the earth, whilst a man can say an Ave Maria, if it keep the same space, or compass the earth 1884 times in an hour, which is _supra humanam cogitationem_, beyond human conceit: _ocyor et jaculo, et ventos, aequante sagitta_. A man could not ride so much ground, going 40 miles a day, in 2904 years, as the firmament goes in 23 hours: or so much in 203 years, as the firmament in one minute: _quod incredibile videtur_: and the [3103]pole-star, which to our thinking scarce moveth out of his place, goeth a bigger circuit than the sun, whose diameter is much larger than the diameter of the heaven of the sun, and 20,000 semi-diameters of the earth from us, with the rest of the fixed stars, as Tycho proves. To avoid therefore these impossibilities, they ascribe a triple motion to the earth, the sun immovable in the centre of the whole world, the earth centre of the moon, alone, above [Symbol: Mars] and [Symbol: Mercury], beneath [Symbol: Saturn], [Symbol: Jupiter], [Symbol: Mars] (or as [3104]Origanus and others will, one single motion to the earth, still placed in the centre of the world, which is more probable) a single motion to the firmament, which moves in 30 or 26 thousand years; and so the planets, Saturn in 30 years absolves his sole and proper motion, Jupiter in 12, Mars in 3, &c. and so solve all appearances better than any way whatsoever: calculate all motions, be they in _longum_ or _latum_, direct, stationary, retrograde, ascent or descent, without epicycles, intricate eccentrics, &c. _rectius commodiusque per unicum motum terrae_, saith Lansbergius, much more certain than by those Alphonsine, or any such tables, which are grounded from those other suppositions. And 'tis true they say, according to optic principles, the visible appearances of the planets do so indeed answer to their magnitudes and orbs, and come nearest to mathematical observations and precedent calculations, there is no repugnancy to physical axioms, because no penetration of orbs; but then between the sphere of Saturn and the firmament, there is such an incredible and vast [3105]space or distance (7,000,000 semi-diameters of the earth, as Tycho calculates) void of stars: and besides, they do so enhance the bigness of the stars, enlarge their circuit, to solve those ordinary objections of parallaxes and retrogradations of the fixed stars, that alteration of the poles, elevation in several places or latitude of cities here on earth (for, say they, if a man's eye were in the firmament, he should not at all discern that great annual motion of the earth, but it would still appear _punctum indivisibile_ and seem to be fixed in one place, of the same bigness) that it is quite opposite to reason, to natural philosophy, and all out as absurd as disproportional (so some will) as prodigious, as that of the sun's swift motion of heavens. But _hoc posito_, to grant this their tenet of the earth's motion: if the earth move, it is a planet, and shines to them in the moon, and to the other planetary inhabitants, as the moon and they do to us upon the earth: but shine she doth, as Galileo, [3106] Kepler, and others prove, and then _per consequens_, the rest of the planets are inhabited, as well as the moon, which he grants in his dissertation with Galileo's _Nuncius Sidereus_, [3107]"that there be Jovial and Saturn inhabitants," &c., and those several planets have their several moons about them, as the earth hath hers, as Galileo hath already evinced by his glasses: [3108]four about Jupiter, two about Saturn (though Sitius the Florentine, Fortunius Licetus, and Jul. Caesar le Galla cavil at it) yet Kepler, the emperor's mathematician, confirms out of his experience, that he saw as much by the same help, and more about Mars, Venus, and the rest they hope to find out, peradventure even amongst the fixed stars, which Brunus and Brutius have already averred. Then (I say) the earth and they be planets alike, moved about the sun, the common centre of the world alike, and it may be those two green children which [3109] Nubrigensis speaks of in his time, that fell from heaven, came from thence; and that famous stone that fell from heaven in Aristotle's time, olymp. 84, _anno tertio, ad Capuas Fluenta_, recorded by Laertius and others, or Ancile or buckler in Numa's time, recorded by Festus. We may likewise insert with Campanella and Brunus, that which Pythagoras, Aristarchus, Samius, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Melissus, Democritus, Leucippus maintained in their ages, there be [3110]infinite worlds, and infinite earths or systems, _in infinito aethere_, which [3111]Eusebius collects out of their tenets, because infinite stars and planets like unto this of ours, which some stick not still to maintain and publicly defend, _sperabundus expecto innumerabilium mundorum in aeternitate per ambulationem_, &c. (Nic. Hill. Londinensis _philos. Epicur._) For if the firmament be of such an incomparable bigness, as these Copernical giants will have it, _infinitum, aut infinito proximum_, so vast and full of innumerable stars, as being infinite in extent, one above another, some higher, some lower, some nearer, some farther off, and so far asunder, and those so huge and great, insomuch that if the whole sphere of Saturn, and all that is included in it, _totum aggregatum_ (as Fromundus of Louvain in his tract, _de immobilitate terrae_ argues) _evehatur inter stellas, videri a nobis non poterat, tam immanis est distantia inter tellurem et fixas, sed instar puncti_, &c. If our world be small in respect, why may we not suppose a plurality of worlds, those infinite stars visible in the firmament to be so many suns, with particular fixed centres; to have likewise their subordinate planets, as the sun hath his dancing still round him? which Cardinal Cusanus, Walkarinus, Brunus, and some others have held, and some still maintain, _Animae, Aristotelismo innutritae, et minutis speculationibus assuetae, secus forsan_, &c. Though they seem close to us, they are infinitely distant, and so _per consequens_, there are infinite habitable worlds: what hinders? Why should not an infinite cause (as God is) produce infinite effects? as Nic. Hill. _Democrit. philos._ disputes: Kepler (I confess) will by no means admit of Brunus's infinite worlds, or that the fixed stars should be so many suns, with their compassing planets, yet the said [3112]Kepler between jest and earnest in his perspectives, lunar geography, [3113] & _somnio suo, dissertat. cum nunc. sider._ seems in part to agree with this, and partly to contradict; for the planets, he yields them to be inhabited, he doubts of the stars; and so doth Tycho in his astronomical epistles, out of a consideration of their vastity and greatness, break out into some such like speeches, that he will never believe those great and huge bodies were made to no other use than this that we perceive, to illuminate the earth, a point insensible in respect of the whole. But who shall dwell in these vast bodies, earths, worlds, [3114] "if they be inhabited? rational creatures?" as Kepler demands, "or have they souls to be saved? or do they inhabit a better part of the world than we do? Are we or they lords of the world? And how are all things made for man?" _Difficile est nodum hunc expedire, eo quod nondum omnia quae huc pertinent explorata habemus_: 'tis hard to determine: this only he proves, that we are in _praecipuo mundi sinu_, in the best place, best world, nearest the heart of the sun. [3115]Thomas Campanella, a Calabrian monk, in his second book _de sensu rerum, cap. 4_, subscribes to this of Kepler; that they are inhabited he certainly supposeth, but with what kind of creatures he cannot say, he labours to prove it by all means: and that there are infinite worlds, having made an apology for Galileo, and dedicates this tenet of his to Cardinal Cajetanus. Others freely speak, mutter, and would persuade the world (as [3116]Marinus Marcenus complains) that our modern divines are too severe and rigid against mathematicians; ignorant and peevish, in not admitting their true demonstrations and certain observations, that they tyrannise over art, science, and all philosophy, in suppressing their labours (saith Pomponatius), forbidding them to write, to speak a truth, all to maintain their superstition, and for their profit's sake. As for those places of Scripture which oppugn it, they will have spoken _ad captum vulgi_, and if rightly understood, and favourably interpreted, not at all against it; and as Otho Gasman, _Astrol. cap. 1. part. 1._ notes, many great divines, besides Porphyrius, Proclus, Simplicius, and those heathen philosophers, _doctrina et aetate venerandi, Mosis Genesin mundanam popularis nescio cujus ruditatis, quae longa absit a vera Philosophorum eruditione, insimulant_: for Moses makes mention but of two planets, [Symbol: Sun] and [Symbol: Moon-3/4], no four elements, &c. Read more on him, in [3117]Grossius and Junius. But to proceed, these and such like insolent and bold attempts, prodigious paradoxes, inferences must needs follow, if it once be granted, which Rotman, Kepler, Gilbert, Diggeus, Origanus, Galileo, and others, maintain of the earth's motion, that 'tis a planet, and shines as the moon doth, which contains in it [3118]"both land and sea as the moon doth:" for so they find by their glasses that _Maculae in facie Lunae_, "the brighter parts are earth, the dusky sea," which Thales, Plutarch, and Pythagoras formerly taught: and manifestly discern hills and dales, and such like concavities, if we may subscribe to and believe Galileo's observations. But to avoid these paradoxes of the earth's motion (which the Church of Rome hath lately [3119]condemned as heretical, as appears by Blancanus and Fromundus's writings) our latter mathematicians have rolled all the stones that may be stirred: and to solve all appearances and objections, have invented new hypotheses, and fabricated new systems of the world, out of their own Dedalaean heads. Fracastorius will have the earth stand still, as before; and to avoid that supposition of eccentrics and epicycles, he hath coined seventy-two homocentrics, to solve all appearances. Nicholas Ramerus will have the earth the centre of the world, but movable, and the eighth sphere immovable, the five upper planets to move about the sun, the sun and moon about the earth. Of which orbs Tycho Brahe puts the earth the centre immovable, the stars immovable, the rest with Ramerus, the planets without orbs to wander in the air, keep time and distance, true motion, according to that virtue which God hath given them. [3120]Helisaeus Roeslin censureth both, with Copernicus (whose hypothesis _de terrae motu_, Philippus Lansbergius hath lately vindicated, and demonstrated with solid arguments in a just volume, Jansonius Caesins [3121]hath illustrated in a sphere.) The said Johannes Lansbergius, 1633, hath since defended his assertion against all the cavils and calumnies of Fromundus his Anti-Aristarchus, Baptista Morinus, and Petrus Bartholinus: Fromundus, 1634, hath written against him again, J. Rosseus of Aberdeen, &c. (sound drums and trumpets) whilst Roeslin (I say) censures all, and Ptolemeus himself as insufficient: one offends against natural philosophy, another against optic principles, a third against mathematical, as not answering to astronomical observations: one puts a great space between Saturn's orb and the eighth sphere, another too narrow. In his own hypothesis he makes the earth as before the universal centre, the sun to the five upper planets, to the eighth sphere he ascribes diurnal motion, eccentrics, and epicycles to the seven planets, which hath been formerly exploded; and so, _Dum vitant stulti vitia in contraria currunt_, [3122]as a tinker stops one hole and makes two, he corrects them, and doth worse himself: reforms some, and mars all. In the mean time, the world is tossed in a blanket amongst them, they hoist the earth up and down like a ball, make it stand and go at their pleasures: one saith the sun stands, another he moves; a third comes in, taking them all at rebound, and lest there should any paradox be wanting, he [3123]finds certain spots and clouds in the sun, by the help of glasses, which multiply (saith Keplerus) a thing seen a thousand times bigger _in plano_, and makes it come thirty-two times nearer to the eye of the beholder: but see the demonstration of this glass in [3124]Tarde, by means of which, the sun must turn round upon his own centre, or they about the sun. Fabricius puts only three, and those in the sun: Apelles 15, and those without the sun, floating like the Cyanean Isles in the Euxine sea. [3125]Tarde, the Frenchman, hath observed thirty-three, and those neither spots nor clouds, as Galileo, _Epist. ad Valserum_, supposeth, but planets concentric with the sun, and not far from him with regular motions. [3126]Christopher Shemer, a German Suisser Jesuit, _Ursica Rosa_, divides them _in maculas et faculas_, and will have them to be fixed _in Solis superficie_: and to absolve their periodical and regular motion in twenty-seven or twenty-eight days, holding withal the rotation of the sun upon his centre; and all are so confident, that they have made schemes and tables of their motions. The [3127]Hollander, in his _dissertatiuncula cum Apelle_, censures all; and thus they disagree amongst themselves, old and new, irreconcilable in their opinions; thus Aristarchus, thus Hipparchus, thus Ptolemeus, thus Albateginus, thus Alfraganus, thus Tycho, thus Ramerus, thus Roeslinus, thus Fracastorius, thus Copernicus and his adherents, thus Clavius and Maginus, &c., with their followers, vary and determine of these celestial orbs and bodies: and so whilst these men contend about the sun and moon, like the philosophers in Lucian, it is to be feared, the sun and moon will hide themselves, and be as much offended as [3128]she was with those, and send another messenger to Jupiter, by some new-fangled Icaromenippus, to make an end of all those curious controversies, and scatter them abroad. But why should the sun and moon be angry, or take exceptions at mathematicians and philosophers? when as the like measure is offered unto God himself, by a company of theologasters: they are not contented to see the sun and moon, measure their site and biggest distance in a glass, calculate their motions, or visit the moon in a poetical fiction, or a dream, as he saith, [3129]_Audax facinus et memorabile nunc incipiam, neque hoc saeculo usurpatum prius, quid in Lunae regno hac nocte gestum sit exponam, et quo nemo unquam nisi somniando pervenit_, [3130]but he and Menippus: or as [3131]Peter Cuneus, _Bona fide agam, nihil eorum quae scripturus sum, verum esse scitote, &c. quae nec facta, nec futura sunt, dicam, [3132]stili tantum et ingenii causa_, not in jest, but in good earnest these gigantical Cyclops will transcend spheres, heaven, stars, into that Empyrean heaven; soar higher yet, and see what God himself doth. The Jewish Talmudists take upon them to determine how God spends his whole time, sometimes playing with Leviathan, sometimes overseeing the world, &c., like Lucian's Jupiter, that spent much of the year in painting butterflies' wings, and seeing who offered sacrifice; telling the hours when it should rain, how much snow should fall in such a place, which way the wind should stand in Greece, which way in Africa. In the Turks' Alcoran, Mahomet is taken up to heaven, upon a Pegasus sent on purpose for him, as he lay in bed with his wife, and after some conference with God is set on ground again. The pagans paint him and mangle him after a thousand fashions; our heretics, schismatics, and some schoolmen, come not far behind: some paint him in the habit of an old man, and make maps of heaven, number the angels, tell their several [3133]names, offices: some deny God and his providence, some take his office out of his hands, will [3134]bind and loose in heaven, release, pardon, forgive, and be quarter-master with him: some call his Godhead in question, his power, and attributes, his mercy, justice, providence: they will know with [3135]Cecilius, why good and bad are punished together, war, fires, plagues, infest all alike, why wicked men flourish, good are poor, in prison, sick, and ill at ease. Why doth he suffer so much mischief and evil to be done, if he be [3136]able to help? why doth he not assist good, or resist bad, reform our wills, if he be not the author of sin, and let such enormities be committed, unworthy of his knowledge, wisdom, government, mercy, and providence, why lets he all things be done by fortune and chance? Others as prodigiously inquire after his omnipotency, _an possit plures similes creare deos? an ex scarcibaeo deum? &c., et quo demum ruetis sacrificuli_? Some, by visions and revelations, take upon them to be familiar with God, and to be of privy council with him; they will tell how many, and who shall be saved, when the world shall come to an end, what year, what month, and whatsoever else God hath reserved unto himself, and to his angels. Some again, curious fantastics, will know more than this, and inquire with [3137]Epicurus, what God did before the world was made? was he idle? Where did he bide? What did he make the world of? why did he then make it, and not before? If he made it new, or to have an end, how is he unchangeable, infinite, &c. Some will dispute, cavil, and object, as Julian did of old, whom Cyril confutes, as Simon Magus is feigned to do, in that [3138]dialogue betwixt him and Peter: and Ammonius the philosopher, in that dialogical disputation with Zacharias the Christian. If God be infinitely and only good, why should he alter or destroy the world? if he confound that which is good, how shall himself continue good? If he pull it down because evil, how shall he be free from the evil that made it evil? &c., with many such absurd and brain-sick questions, intricacies, froth of human wit, and excrements of curiosity, &c., which, as our Saviour told his inquisitive disciples, are not fit for them to know. But hoo! I am now gone quite out of sight, I am almost giddy with roving about: I could have ranged farther yet; but I am an infant, and not [3139]able to dive into these profundities, or sound these depths; not able to understand, much less to discuss. I leave the contemplation of these things to stronger wits, that have better ability, and happier leisure to wade into such philosophical mysteries; for put case I were as able as willing, yet what can one man do? I will conclude with [3140]Scaliger, _Nequaquam nos homines sumus, sed partes hominis, ex omnibus aliquid fieri potest, idque non magnum; ex singulis fere nihil_. Besides (as Nazianzen hath it) _Deus latere nos multa voluit_; and with Seneca, _cap. 35. de Cometis_, _Quid miramur tam rara mundi spectacula non teneri certis legibus, nondum intelligi? multae sunt gentes quae tantum de facie sciunt coelum, veniet, tempus fortasse, quo ista quae, nunc latent in lucem dies extrahat longioris aevi diligentia, una aetas non sufficit, posteri_, &c., when God sees his time, he will reveal these mysteries to mortal men, and show that to some few at last, which he hath concealed so long. For I am of [3141]his mind, that Columbus did not find out America by chance, but God directed him at that time to discover it: it was contingent to him, but necessary to God; he reveals and conceals to whom and when he will. And which [3142]one said of history and records of former times, "God in his providence, to check our presumptuous inquisition, wraps up all things in uncertainty, bars us from long antiquity, and bounds our search within the compass of some few ages:" many good things are lost, which our predecessors made use of, as Pancirola will better inform you; many new things are daily invented, to the public good; so kingdoms, men, and knowledge ebb and flow, are hid and revealed, and when you have all done, as the Preacher concluded, _Nihil est sub sole novum_ (nothing new under the sun.) But my melancholy spaniel's quest, my game is sprung, and I must suddenly come down and follow. Jason Pratensis, in his book _de morbis capitis_, and chapter of Melancholy, hath these words out of Galen, [3143]"Let them come to me to know what meat and drink they shall use, and besides that, I will teach them what temper of ambient air they shall make choice of, what wind, what countries they shall choose, and what avoid." Out of which lines of his, thus much we may gather, that to this cure of melancholy, amongst other things, the rectification of air is necessarily required. This is performed, either in reforming natural or artificial air. Natural is that which is in our election to choose or avoid: and 'tis either general, to countries, provinces; particular, to cities, towns, villages, or private houses. What harm those extremities of heat or cold do in this malady, I have formerly shown: the medium must needs be good, where the air is temperate, serene, quiet, free from bogs, fens, mists, all manner of putrefaction, contagious and filthy noisome smells. The [3144]Egyptians by all geographers are commended to be _hilares_, a conceited and merry nation: which I can ascribe to no other cause than the serenity of their air. They that live in the Orcades are registered by [3145]Hector Boethius and [3146]Cardan, to be of fair complexion, long-lived, most healthful, free from all manner of infirmities of body and mind, by reason of a sharp purifying air, which comes from the sea. The Boeotians in Greece were dull and heavy, _crassi Boeoti_, by reason of a foggy air in which they lived, [3147]_Boeotum in crasso jurares aere natum_, Attica most acute, pleasant, and refined. The clime changes not so much customs, manners, wits (as Aristotle _Polit. lib. 6. cap. 4._ Vegetius, Plato, Bodine, _method. hist. cap. 5._ hath proved at large) as constitutions of their bodies, and temperature itself. In all particular provinces we see it confirmed by experience, as the air is, so are the inhabitants, dull, heavy, witty, subtle, neat, cleanly, clownish, sick, and sound. In [3148]Perigord in France the air is subtle, healthful, seldom any plague or contagious disease, but hilly and barren: the men sound, nimble, and lusty; but in some parts of Guienne, full of moors and marshes, the people dull, heavy, and subject to many infirmities. Who sees not a great difference between Surrey, Sussex, and Romney Marsh, the wolds in Lincolnshire and the fens. He therefore that loves his health, if his ability will give him leave, must often shift places, and make choice of such as are wholesome, pleasant, and convenient: there is nothing better than change of air in this malady, and generally for health to wander up and down, as those [3149]_Tartari Zamolhenses_, that live in hordes, and take opportunity of times, places, seasons. The kings of Persia had their summer and winter houses; in winter at Sardis, in summer at Susa; now at Persepolis, then at Pasargada. Cyrus lived seven cold months at Babylon, three at Susa, two at Ecbatana, saith [3150]Xenophon, and had by that means a perpetual spring. The great Turk sojourns sometimes at Constantinople, sometimes at Adrianople, &c. The kings of Spain have their Escurial in heat of summer, [3151]Madrid for a wholesome seat, Valladolid a pleasant site, &c., variety of _secessus_ as all princes and great men have, and their several progresses to this purpose. Lucullus the Roman had his house at Rome, at Baiae, &c. [3152]When Cn. Pompeius, Marcus Cicero (saith Plutarch) and many noble men in the summer came to see him, at supper Pompeius jested with him, that it was an elegant and pleasant village, full of windows, galleries, and all offices fit for a summer house; but in his judgment very unfit for winter: Lucullus made answer that the lord of the house had wit like a crane, that changeth her country with the season; he had other houses furnished, and built for that purpose, all out as commodious as this. So Tully had his Tusculan, Plinius his Lauretan village, and every gentleman of any fashion in our times hath the like. The [3153]bishop of Exeter had fourteen several houses all furnished, in times past. In Italy, though they bide in cities in winter, which is more gentlemanlike, all the summer they come abroad to their country-houses, to recreate themselves. Our gentry in England live most part in the country (except it be some few castles) building still in bottoms (saith [3154]Jovius) or near woods, _corona arborum virentium_; you shall know a village by a tuft of trees at or about it, to avoid those strong winds wherewith the island is infested, and cold winter blasts. Some discommend moated houses, as unwholesome; so Camden saith of [3155]Ew-elme, that it was therefore unfrequented, _ob stagni vicini halitus_, and all such places as be near lakes or rivers. But I am of opinion that these inconveniences will be mitigated, or easily corrected by good fires, as [3156]one reports of Venice, that _graveolentia_ and fog of the moors is sufficiently qualified by those innumerable smokes. Nay more, [3157]Thomas Philol. Ravennas, a great physician, contends that the Venetians are generally longer-lived than any city in Europe, and live many of them 120 years. But it is not water simply that so much offends, as the slime and noisome smells that accompany such overflowed places, which is but at some few seasons after a flood, and is sufficiently recompensed with sweet smells and aspects in summer, _Ver pinget vario gemmantia prata colore_, and many other commodities of pleasure and profit; or else may be corrected by the site, if it be somewhat remote from the water, as Lindley, [3158]_Orton super montem_, [3159]Drayton, or a little more elevated, though nearer, as [3160]Caucut, [3161]Amington, [3162]Polesworth, [3163]Weddington (to insist in such places best to me known, upon the river of Anker, in Warwickshire, [3164] Swarston, and [3165]Drakesly upon Trent). Or howsoever they be unseasonable in winter, or at some times, they have their good use in summer. If so be that their means be so slender as they may not admit of any such variety, but must determine once for all, and make one house serve each season, I know no men that have given better rules in this behalf than our husbandry writers. [3166]Cato and Columella prescribe a good house to stand by a navigable river, good highways, near some city, and in a good soil, but that is more for commodity than health. The best soil commonly yields the worst air, a dry sandy plat is fittest to build upon, and such as is rather hilly than plain, full of downs, a Cotswold country, as being most commodious for hawking, hunting, wood, waters, and all manner of pleasures. Perigord in France is barren, yet by reason of the excellency of the air, and such pleasures that it affords, much inhabited by the nobility; as Nuremberg in Germany, Toledo in Spain. Our countryman Tusser will tell us so much, that the fieldone is for profit, the woodland for pleasure and health; the one commonly a deep clay, therefore noisome in winter, and subject to bad highways: the other a dry sand. Provision may be had elsewhere, and our towns are generally bigger in the woodland than the fieldone, more frequent and populous, and gentlemen more delight to dwell in such places. Sutton Coldfield in Warwickshire (where I was once a grammar scholar), may be a sufficient witness, which stands, as Camden notes, _loco ingrato et sterili_, but in an excellent air, and full of all manner of pleasures. [3167]Wadley in Berkshire is situate in a vale, though not so fertile a soil as some vales afford, yet a most commodious site, wholesome, in a delicious air, a rich and pleasant seat. So Segrave in Leicestershire (which town [3168]I am now bound to remember) is situated in a champaign, at the edge of the wolds, and more barren than the villages about it, yet no place likely yields a better air. And he that built that fair house, [3169]Wollerton in Nottinghamshire, is much to be commended (though the tract be sandy and barren about it) for making choice of such a place. Constantine, _lib. 2. cap. de Agricult._ praiseth mountains, hilly, steep places, above the rest by the seaside, and such as look toward the [3170]north upon some great river, as [3171] Farmack in Derbyshire, on the Trent, environed with hills, open only to the north, like Mount Edgecombe in Cornwall, which Mr. [3172]Carew so much admires for an excellent seat: such is the general site of Bohemia: _serenat Boreas_, the north wind clarifies, [3173]"but near lakes or marshes, in holes, obscure places, or to the south and west, he utterly disproves," those winds are unwholesome, putrefying, and make men subject to diseases. The best building for health, according to him, is in [3174] "high places, and in an excellent prospect," like that of Cuddeston in Oxfordshire (which place I must _honoris ergo_ mention) is lately and fairly [3175]built in a good air, good prospect, good soil, both for profit and pleasure, not so easily to be matched. P. Crescentius, in his _lib. 1. de Agric. cap. 5._ is very copious in this subject, how a house should be wholesomely sited, in a good coast, good air, wind, &c., Varro _de re rust. lib. 1. cap. 12._ [3176]forbids lakes and rivers, marshy and manured grounds, they cause a bad air, gross diseases, hard to be cured: [3177]"if it be so that he cannot help it, better (as he adviseth) sell thy house and land than lose thine health." He that respects not this in choosing of his seat, or building his house, is _mente captus_, mad, [3178]Cato saith, "and his dwelling next to hell itself," according to Columella: he commends, in conclusion, the middle of a hill, upon a descent. Baptista, _Porta Villae, lib. 1. cap. 22._ censures Varro, Cato, Columella, and those ancient rustics, approving many things, disallowing some, and will by all means have the front of a house stand to the south, which how it may be good in Italy and hotter climes, I know not, in our northern countries I am sure it is best: Stephanus, a Frenchman, _praedio rustic. lib. 1. cap. 4._ subscribes to this, approving especially the descent of a hill south or south-east, with trees to the north, so that it be well watered; a condition in all sites which must not be omitted, as Herbastein inculcates, _lib. 1._ Julius Caesar Claudinus, a physician, _consult. 24_, for a nobleman in Poland, melancholy given, adviseth him to dwell in a house inclining to the [3179]east, and [3180]by all means to provide the air be clear and sweet; which Montanus, _consil. 229_, counselleth the earl of Monfort, his patient, to inhabit a pleasant house, and in a good air. If it be so the natural site may not be altered of our city, town, village, yet by artificial means it may be helped. In hot countries, therefore, they make the streets of their cities very narrow, all over Spain, Africa, Italy, Greece, and many cities of France, in Languedoc especially, and Provence, those southern parts: Montpelier, the habitation and university of physicians, is so built, with high houses, narrow streets, to divert the sun's scalding rays, which Tacitus commends, _lib. 15. Annat._, as most agreeing to their health, [3181]"because the height of buildings, and narrowness of streets, keep away the sunbeams." Some cities use galleries, or arched cloisters towards the street, as Damascus, Bologna, Padua, Berne in Switzerland, Westchester with us, as well to avoid tempests, as the sun's scorching heat. They build on high hills, in hot countries, for more air; or to the seaside, as Baiae, Naples, &c. In our northern countries we are opposite, we commend straight, broad, open, fair streets, as most befitting and agreeing to our clime. We build in bottoms for warmth: and that site of Mitylene in the island of Lesbos, in the Aegean sea, which Vitruvius so much discommends, magnificently built with fair houses, _sed imprudenter positam_ unadvisedly sited, because it lay along to the south, and when the south wind blew, the people were all sick, would make an excellent site in our northern climes. Of that artificial site of houses I have sufficiently discoursed: if the plan of the dwelling may not be altered, yet there is much in choice of such a chamber or room, in opportune opening and shutting of windows, excluding foreign air and winds, and walking abroad at convenient times. [3182]Crato, a German, commends east and south site (disallowing cold air and northern winds in this case, rainy weather and misty days), free from putrefaction, fens, bogs, and muck--hills. If the air be such, open no windows, come not abroad. Montanus will have his patient not to [3183]stir at all, if the wind be big or tempestuous, as most part in March it is with us; or in cloudy, lowering, dark days, as in November, which we commonly call the black month; or stormy, let the wind stand how it will, _consil. 27. and 30._ he must not [3184]"open a casement in bad weather," or in a boisterous season, _consil. 299_, he especially forbids us to open windows to a south wind. The best sites for chamber windows, in my judgment, are north, east, south, and which is the worst, west. Levinus Lemnius, _lib. 3. cap. 3. de occult. nat. mir._ attributes so much to air, and rectifying of wind and windows, that he holds it alone sufficient to make a man sick or well; to alter body and mind. [3185]"A clear air cheers up the spirits, exhilarates the mind; a thick, black, misty, tempestuous, contracts, overthrows." Great heed is therefore to be taken at what times we walk, how we place our windows, lights, and houses, how we let in or exclude this ambient air. The Egyptians, to avoid immoderate heat, make their windows on the top of the house like chimneys, with two tunnels to draw a thorough air. In Spain they commonly make great opposite windows without glass, still shutting those which are next to the sun: so likewise in Turkey and Italy (Venice excepted, which brags of her stately glazed palaces) they use paper windows to like purpose; and lie, _sub dio_, in the top of their flat-roofed houses, so sleeping under the canopy of heaven. In some parts of [3186]Italy they have windmills, to draw a cooling air out of hollow caves, and disperse the same through all the chambers of their palaces, to refresh them; as at Costoza, the house of Caesareo Trento, a gentleman of Vicenza, and elsewhere. Many excellent means are invented to correct nature by art. If none of these courses help, the best way is to make artificial air, which howsoever is profitable and good, still to be made hot and moist, and to be seasoned with sweet perfumes, [3187]pleasant and lightsome as it may be; to have roses, violets, and sweet-smelling flowers ever in their windows, posies in their hand. Laurentius commends water-lilies, a vessel of warm water to evaporate in the room, which will make a more delightful perfume, if there be added orange-flowers, pills of citrons, rosemary, cloves, bays, rosewater, rose-vinegar, benzoin, laudanum, styrax, and such like gums, which make a pleasant and acceptable perfume. [3188]Bessardus Bisantinus prefers the smoke of juniper to melancholy persons, which is in great request with us at Oxford, to sweeten our chambers. [3189]Guianerius prescribes the air to be moistened with water, and sweet herbs boiled in it, vine, and sallow leaves, &c., [3190] to besprinkle the ground and posts with rosewater, rose-vinegar, which Avicenna much approves. Of colours it is good to behold green, red, yellow, and white, and by all means to have light enough, with windows in the day, wax candles in the night, neat chambers, good fires in winter, merry companions; for though melancholy persons love to be dark and alone, yet darkness is a great increaser of the humour. Although our ordinary air be good by nature or art, yet it is not amiss, as I have said, still to alter it; no better physic for a melancholy man than change of air, and variety of places, to travel abroad and see fashions. [3191]Leo Afer speaks of many of his countrymen so cured, without all other physic: amongst the Negroes, "there is such an excellent air, that if any of them be sick elsewhere, and brought thither, he is instantly recovered, of which he was often an eyewitness." [3192]Lipsius, Zuinger, and some others, add as much of ordinary travel. No man, saith Lipsius, in an epistle to Phil. Lanoius, a noble friend of his, now ready to make a voyage, [3193]"can be such a stock or stone, whom that pleasant speculation of countries, cities, towns, rivers, will not affect." [3194] Seneca the philosopher was infinitely taken with the sight of Scipio Africanus' house, near Linternum, to view those old buildings, cisterns, baths, tombs, &c. And how was [3195]Tully pleased with the sight of Athens, to behold those ancient and fair buildings, with a remembrance of their worthy inhabitants. Paulus Aemilius, that renowned Roman captain, after he had conquered Perseus, the last king of Macedonia, and now made an end of his tedious wars, though he had been long absent from Rome, and much there desired, about the beginning of autumn (as [3196]Livy describes it) made a pleasant peregrination all over Greece, accompanied with his son Scipio, and Atheneus the brother of king Eumenes, leaving the charge of his army with Sulpicius Gallus. By Thessaly he went to Delphos, thence to Megaris, Aulis, Athens, Argos, Lacedaemon, Megalopolis, &c. He took great content, exceeding delight in that his voyage, as who doth not that shall attempt the like, though his travel be _ad jactationem magis quam ad usum reipub._ (as [3197]one well observes) to crack, gaze, see fine sights and fashions, spend time, rather than for his own or public good? (as it is to many gallants that travel out their best days, together with their means, manners, honesty, religion) yet it availeth howsoever. For peregrination charms our senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety, [3198]that some count him unhappy that never travelled, and pity his case, that from his cradle to his old age beholds the same still; still, still the same, the same. Insomuch that [3199]Rhasis, _cont. lib. 1. Tract. 2._ doth not only commend, but enjoin travel, and such variety of objects to a melancholy man, "and to lie in diverse inns, to be drawn into several companies:" Montaltus, _cap. 36._ and many neoterics are of the same mind: Celsus adviseth him therefore that will continue his health, to have _varium vitae genus_, diversity of callings, occupations, to be busied about, [3200] "sometimes to live in the city, sometimes in the country; now to study or work, to be intent, then again to hawk or hunt, swim, run, ride, or exercise himself." A good prospect alone will ease melancholy, as Comesius contends, _lib. 2. c. 7. de Sale_. The citizens of [3201]Barcino, saith he, otherwise penned in, melancholy, and stirring little abroad, are much delighted with that pleasant prospect their city hath into the sea, which like that of old Athens besides Aegina Salamina, and many pleasant islands, had all the variety of delicious objects: so are those Neapolitans and inhabitants of Genoa, to see the ships, boats, and passengers go by, out of their windows, their whole cities being situated on the side of a hill, like Pera by Constantinople, so that each house almost hath a free prospect to the sea, as some part of London to the Thames: or to have a free prospect all over the city at once, as at Granada in Spain, and Fez in Africa, the river running betwixt two declining hills, the steepness causeth each house almost, as well to oversee, as to be overseen of the rest. Every country is full of such [3202]delightsome prospects, as well within land, as by sea, as Hermon and [3203]Rama in Palestina, Colalto in Italy, the top of Magetus, or Acrocorinthus, that old decayed castle in Corinth, from which Peloponessus, Greece, the Ionian and Aegean seas were _semel et simul_ at one view to be taken. In Egypt the square top of the great pyramid, three hundred yards in height, and so the Sultan's palace in Grand Cairo, the country being plain, hath a marvellous fair prospect as well over Nilus, as that great city, five Italian miles long, and two broad, by the river side: from mount Sion in Jerusalem, the Holy Land is of all sides to be seen: such high places are infinite: with us those of the best note are Glastonbury tower, Box Hill in Surrey, Bever castle, Rodway Grange, [3204]Walsby in Lincolnshire, where I lately received a real kindness, by the munificence of the right honourable my noble lady and patroness, the Lady Frances, countess dowager of Exeter: and two amongst the rest, which I may not omit for vicinity's sake, Oldbury in the confines of Warwickshire, where I have often looked about me with great delight, at the foot of which hill [3205]I was born: and Hanbury in Staffordshire, contiguous to which is Falde, a pleasant village, and an ancient patrimony belonging to our family, now in the possession of mine elder brother, William Burton, Esquire. [3206]Barclay the Scot commends that of Greenwich tower for one of the best prospects in Europe, to see London on the one side, the Thames, ships, and pleasant meadows on the other. There be those that say as much and more of St. Mark's steeple in Venice. Yet these are at too great a distance: some are especially affected with such objects as be near, to see passengers go by in some great roadway, or boats in a river, _in subjectum forum despicere_, to oversee a fair, a marketplace, or out of a pleasant window into some thoroughfare street, to behold a continual concourse, a promiscuous rout, coming and going, or a multitude of spectators at a theatre, a mask, or some such like show. But I rove: the sum is this, that variety of actions, objects, air, places, are excellent good in this infirmity, and all others, good for man, good for beast. [3207]Constantine the emperor, _lib. 18. cap. 13. ex Leontio_, "holds it an only cure for rotten sheep, and any manner of sick cattle." Laelius a Fonte Aegubinus, that great doctor, at the latter end of many of his consultations (as commonly he doth set down what success his physic had,) in melancholy most especially approves of this above all other remedies whatsoever, as appears _consult. 69. consult. 229._ &c. [3208]"Many other things helped, but change of air was that which wrought the cure, and did most good." MEMB. IV. _Exercise rectified of Body and Mind_. To that great inconvenience, which comes on the one side by immoderate and unseasonable exercise, too much solitariness and idleness on the other, must be opposed as an antidote, a moderate and seasonable use of it, and that both of body and mind, as a most material circumstance, much conducing to this cure, and to the general preservation of our health. The heavens themselves run continually round, the sun riseth and sets, the moon increaseth and decreaseth, stars and planets keep their constant motions, the air is still tossed by the winds, the waters ebb and flow to their conservation no doubt, to teach us that we should ever be in action. For which cause Hieron prescribes Rusticus the monk, that he be always occupied about some business or other, [3209]"that the devil do not find him idle." [3210]Seneca would have a man do something, though it be to no purpose. [3211]Xenophon wisheth one rather to play at tables, dice, or make a jester of himself (though he might be far better employed) than do nothing. The [3212]Egyptians of old, and many flourishing commonwealths since, have enjoined labour and exercise to all sorts of men, to be of some vocation and calling, and give an account of their time, to prevent those grievous mischiefs that come by idleness: "for as fodder, whip, and burthen belong to the ass: so meat, correction, and work unto the servant," Ecclus. xxxiii. 23. The Turks enjoin all men whatsoever, of what degree, to be of some trade or other, the Grand Signior himself is not excused. [3213]"In our memory" (saith Sabellicus) "Mahomet the Turk, he that conquered Greece, at that very time when he heard ambassadors of other princes, did either carve or cut wooden spoons, or frame something upon a table." [3214]This present sultan makes notches for bows. The Jews are most severe in this examination of time. All well-governed places, towns, families, and every discreet person will be a law unto himself. But amongst us the badge of gentry is idleness: to be of no calling, not to labour, for that's derogatory to their birth, to be a mere spectator, a drone, _fruges consumere natus_, to have no necessary employment to busy himself about in church and commonwealth (some few governors exempted), "but to rise to eat," &c., to spend his days in hawking, hunting, &c., and such like disports and recreations ([3215]which our casuists tax), are the sole exercise almost, and ordinary actions of our nobility, and in which they are too immoderate. And thence it comes to pass, that in city and country so many grievances of body and mind, and this feral disease of melancholy so frequently rageth, and now domineers almost all over Europe amongst our great ones. They know not how to spend their time (disports excepted, which are all their business), what to do, or otherwise how to bestow themselves: like our modern Frenchmen, that had rather lose a pound of blood in a single combat, than a drop of sweat in any honest labour. Every man almost hath something or other to employ himself about, some vocation, some trade, but they do all by ministers and servants, _ad otia duntaxat se natos existimant, imo ad sui ipsius plerumque et aliorum perniciem_, [3216]as one freely taxeth such kind of men, they are all for pastimes, 'tis all their study, all their invention tends to this alone, to drive away time, as if they were born some of them to no other ends. Therefore to correct and avoid these errors and inconveniences, our divines, physicians, and politicians, so much labour, and so seriously exhort; and for this disease in particular, [3217]"there can be no better cure than continual business," as Rhasis holds, "to have some employment or other, which may set their mind awork, and distract their cogitations." Riches may not easily be had without labour and industry, nor learning without study, neither can our health be preserved without bodily exercise. If it be of the body, Guianerius allows that exercise which is gentle, [3218]"and still after those ordinary frications" which must be used every morning. Montaltus, _cap. 26._ and Jason Pratensis use almost the same words, highly commending exercise if it be moderate; "a wonderful help so used," Crato calls it," and a great means to preserve our health, as adding strength to the whole body, increasing natural heat, by means of which the nutriment is well concocted in the stomach, liver, and veins, few or no crudities left, is happily distributed over all the body." Besides, it expels excrements by sweat and other insensible vapours; insomuch, that [3219]Galen prefers exercise before all physic, rectification of diet, or any regimen in what kind soever; 'tis nature's physician. [3220]Fulgentius, out of Gordonius _de conserv. vit. hom. lib. 1. cap. 7._ terms exercise, "a spur of a dull, sleepy nature, the comforter of the members, cure of infirmity, death of diseases, destruction of all mischiefs and vices." The fittest time for exercise is a little before dinner, a little before supper, [3221]or at any time when the body is empty. Montanus, _consil. 31._ prescribes it every morning to his patient, and that, as [3222]Calenus adds, "after he hath done his ordinary needs, rubbed his body, washed his hands and face, combed his head and gargarised." What kind of exercise he should use, Galen tells us, _lib. 2. et 3. de sanit. tuend._ and in what measure, [3223] "till the body be ready to sweat," and roused up; _ad ruborem_, some say, _non ad sudorem_, lest it should dry the body too much; others enjoin those wholesome businesses, as to dig so long in his garden, to hold the plough, and the like. Some prescribe frequent and violent labour and exercises, as sawing every day so long to<  Search for Video right from your Astronomy Crawler Toolbar. It’s easy.Try it.
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