Hir'd to live in a privy a whole year, So are they hir'd for lucre and for gain, All their whole life to smell on excrements. WILL SUM. Very true, for I have heard it for a proverb many a time and oft, _Hinc os faetidum_; Fah! he stinks like a physician. WIN. Innumerable monstrous practices Hath loitering contemplation brought forth more, Which were too long particular to recite: Suffice they all conduce unto this end, To banish labour, nourish slothfulness, Pamper up lust, devise new-fangled sins. Nay, I will justify, there is no vice Which learning and vile knowledge brought not in, Or in whose praise some learned have not wrote. The art of murder Machiavel hath penn'd;[114] Whoredom hath Ovid to uphold her throne, And Aretine of late in Italy, Whose Cortigiana teacheth[115] bawds their trade. Gluttony Epicurus doth defend, And books of the art of cookery confirm, Of which Platina hath not writ the least. Drunkenness of his good behaviour Hath testimonial from where he was born; That pleasant work De Arte Bibendi, A drunken Dutchman spew'd out few years since.[116] Nor wanteth sloth, although sloth's plague be want, His paper pillars for to lean upon.[117] The praise of nothing pleads his worthiness.[118] Folly Erasmus sets a flourish on: For baldness a bald ass I have forgot Patch'd up a pamphletary periwig.[119] Slovenry Grobianus magnifieth:[120] Sodomitry a cardinal commends, And Aristotle necessary deems. In brief, all books, divinity except, Are nought but tales of the devil's laws, Poison wrapt up in sugar'd words, Man's pride, damnation's props, the world's abuse. Then censure, good my lord, what bookmen are: If they be pestilent members in a state, He is unfit to sit at stern of state, That favours such as will o'erthrow his state. Blest is that government, where no art thrives; _Vox pupuli, vox Dei_, The vulgar's voice it is the voice of God. Yet Tully saith, _Non est concilium in vulgo, Non ratio, non discrimen, non differentia_, The vulgar have no learning, wit, nor sense. Themistocles, having spent all his time In study of philosophy and arts, And noting well the vanity of them, Wish'd, with repentance for his folly pass'd, Some would teach him th'art of oblivion, How to forget the arts that he had learn'd. And Cicero, whom we alleged before, (As saith Valerius), stepping into old age, Despised learning, loathed eloquence. Naso, that could speak nothing but pure verse, And had more wit than words to utter it, And words as choice as ever poet had, Cried and exclaim'd in bitter agony, When knowledge had corrupted his chaste mind: _Discite, qui sapitis, non haec quae scimus inertes, Sed trepidas acies et fera bella sequi_.[121] You that be wise, and ever mean to thrive, O, study not these toys we sluggards use, But follow arms, and wait on barbarous wars. Young men, young boys, beware of schoolmasters; They will infect you, mar you, blear your eyes: They seek to lay the curse of God on you, Namely, confusion of languages,