means to redress it is to set them awork, so to busy their minds; for
the truth is, they are idle. Well they may build castles in the air for
a time, and sooth up themselves with fantastical and pleasant humours,
but in the end they will prove as bitter as gall, they shall be still I
say discontent, suspicious, [1555]fearful, jealous, sad, fretting and
vexing of themselves; so long as they be idle, it is impossible to
please them, Otio qui nescit uti, plus habet negotii quam qui negotium
in negotio, as that [1556]Agellius could observe: He that knows not how
to spend his time, hath more business, care, grief, anguish of mind,
than he that is most busy in the midst of all his business. Otiosus
animus nescit quid volet: An idle person (as he follows it) knows not
when he is well, what he would have, or whither he would go, Quum illuc
ventum est, illinc lubet, he is tired out with everything, displeased
with all, weary of his life: Nec bene domi, nec militiae, neither at
home nor abroad, errat, et praeter vitam vivitur, he wanders and lives
besides himself. In a word, What the mischievous effects of laziness
and idleness are, I do not find any where more accurately expressed,
than in these verses of Philolaches in the [1557]Comical Poet, which
for their elegancy I will in part insert.
Novarum aedium esse arbitror similem ego hominem,
Quando hic natus est: Ei rei argumenta dicam.
Aedes quando sunt ad amussim expolitae,
Quisque laudat fabrum, atque exemplum expetit, &c.
At ubi illo migrat nequam homo indiligensque, &c.
Tempestas venit, confringit tegulas, imbricesque,
Putrifacit aer operam fabri, &c.
Dicam ut homines similes esse aedium arbitremini,
Fabri parentes fundamentum substruunt liberorum,
Expoliunt, docent literas, nec parcunt sumptui,
Ego autem sub fabrorum potestate frugi fui,
Postquam autem migravi in ingenium meum,
Perdidi operam fabrorum illico oppido,
Venit ignavia, ea mihi tempestas fuit,
Adventuque suo grandinem et imbrem attulit,
Illa mihi virtutem deturbavit, &c.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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