Lactantius, in his book of wisdom, proves them to be dizzards, fools, asses, madmen, so full of absurd and ridiculous tenets, and brain-sick positions, that to his thinking never any old woman or sick person doted worse.

Old men account juniors all fools, when they are mere dizzards; and as to sailors, terraeque urbesque recedunt they move, the land stands still, the world hath much more wit, they dote themselves.

We accuse others of madness, of folly, and are the veriest dizzards ourselves.

For an inconstant man to write of constancy, a profane liver prescribe rules of sanctity and piety, a dizzard himself make a treatise of wisdom, or with Sallust to rail downright at spoilers of countries, and yet in [407]office to be a most grievous poller himself.

I am of Democritus' opinion for my part, I hold them worthy to be laughed at; a company of brain-sick dizzards, as mad as Orestes and Athamas, that they may go "ride the ass," and all sail along to the Anticyrae, in the "ship of fools" for company together.

If so, methinks most men are fools; examine their courses, and you shall soon perceive what dizzards and mad men the major part are.

And they that teach wisdom, patience, meekness, are the veriest dizzards, harebrains, and most discontent.

Many will not believe they can be seen, and if any man shall say, swear, and stiffly maintain, though he be discreet and wise, judicious and learned, that he hath seen them, they account him a timorous fool, a melancholy dizzard, a weak fellow, a dreamer, a sick or a mad man, they contemn him, laugh him to scorn, and yet Marcus of his credit told Psellus that he had often seen them.

forty years and more, some write: how many poor scholars have lost their wits, or become dizzards, neglecting all worldly affairs and their own health, wealth, esse and bene esse, to gain knowledge for which, after all their pains, in this world's esteem they are accounted ridiculous and silly fools, idiots, asses, and (as oft they are) rejected, contemned, derided, doting, and mad.

This progress of melancholy you shall easily observe in them that have been so affected, they go smiling to themselves at first, at length they laugh out; at first solitary, at last they can endure no company: or if they do, they are now dizzards, past sense and shame, quite moped, they care not what they say or do, all their actions, words, gestures, are furious or ridiculous.

A nobleman therefore in some likelihood, as he concludes, is an "atheist, an oppressor, an epicure, a gull, a dizzard, an illiterate idiot, an outside, a glowworm, a proud fool, an arrant ass," Ventris et inguinis mancipium, a slave to his lust and belly, solaque libidine fortis.

Vix ea nostra voco, when thou art a dizzard thyself: quod prodest, Pontice, longo stemmate censeri?

Some think fools and dizzards live the merriest lives, as Ajax in Sophocles, Nihil scire vita jucundissima, "'tis the pleasantest life to know nothing;" iners malorum remedium ignorantia, "ignorance is a downright remedy of evils."

In Strabo's time it was an ordinary voyage, Naviget Anticyras; a common proverb among the Greeks and Latins, to bid a dizzard or a mad man go take hellebore; as in Lucian, Menippus to Tantalus, Tantale desipis, helleboro epoto tibi opus est, eoque sane meraco, thou art out of thy little wit,

Undoubtedly this may be pronounced of them all, they are very slaves, drudges for the time, madmen, fools, dizzards, atrabilarii[5380], beside themselves, and as blind as beetles.

[6095]si quando ad thalamum, &c., how like a dizzard, a fool, an ass, he looks, how like a clown he behaves himself!

Justina, a Roman lady, was much persecuted, and after made away by her jealous husband, she caused and enjoined this epitaph, as a caveat to others, to be engraven on her tomb: "Discite ab exemplo Justinae, discite patres, Ne nubat fatuo filia vestra viro," &c. "Learn parents all, and by Justina's case, Your children to no dizzards for to place.