decoctores bonorum suorum, so he calls them, prodigal fools, to be publicly shamed, and hissed out of all societies, rather than to be pitied or relieved. [1893]The Tuscans and Boetians brought their bankrupts into the marketplace in a bier with an empty purse carried before them, all the boys following, where they sat all day circumstante plebe, to be infamous and ridiculous. At [1894]Padua in Italy they have a stone called the stone of turpitude, near the senate-house, where spendthrifts, and such as disclaim non-payment of debts, do sit with their hinder parts bare, that by that note of disgrace others may be terrified from all such vain expense, or borrowing more than they can tell how to pay. The [1895]civilians of old set guardians over such brain-sick prodigals, as they did over madmen, to moderate their expenses, that they should not so loosely consume their fortunes, to the utter undoing of their families. I may not here omit those two main plagues, and common dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people; they go commonly together. [1896]Qui vino indulget, quemque aloa decoquit, ille In venerem putret——— To whom is sorrow, saith Solomon, Pro. xxiii. 39, to whom is woe, but to such a one as loves drink? it causeth torture, (vino tortus et ira) and bitterness of mind, Sirac. 31. 21. Vinum furoris, Jeremy calls it, 15. cap. wine of madness, as well he may, for insanire facit sanos, it makes sound men sick and sad, and wise men [1897]mad, to say and do they know not what. Accidit hodie terribilis casus (saith [1898]S. Austin) hear a miserable accident; Cyrillus' son this day in his drink, Matrem praegnantem nequiter oppressit, sororem violare voluit, patrem occidit fere, et duas alias sorores ad mortem vulneravit, would have violated his sister, killed his father, &c. A true saying it was of him, Vino dari laetitiam et dolorem, drink causeth mirth, and drink causeth sorrow, drink causeth poverty and want, (Prov. xxi.) shame and disgrace. Multi ignobiles evasere ob vini potum, et (Austin) amissis honoribus profugi aberrarunt: many men have made shipwreck of their fortunes, and go like rogues and beggars, having turned all their substance into aurum potabile, that otherwise might have lived in good worship and happy estate, and for a few hours' pleasure, for their Hilary term's but short, or [1899]free madness, as Seneca calls it, purchase unto themselves eternal tediousness and trouble. That other madness is on women, Apostatare facit cor, saith the wise man, [1900]Atque homini cerebrum minuit. Pleasant at first she is, like Dioscorides Rhododaphne, that fair plant to the eye, but poison to the taste, the rest as bitter as wormwood in the end (Prov. v. 4.) and sharp as a two-edged sword, (vii. 27.) Her house is the way to hell, and goes down to the chambers of death. What more sorrowful can be said? they are miserable in this life, mad, beasts, led like [1901]oxen