stultitiam_; and as [722]Seneca seconds him, a wise man's oration should
not be polite or solicitous. [723]Fabius esteems no better of most of them,
either in speech, action, gesture, than as men beside themselves, _insanos
declamatores_; so doth Gregory, _Non mihi sapit qui sermone, sed qui factis
sapit._ Make the best of him, a good orator is a turncoat, an evil man,
_bonus orator pessimus vir_, his tongue is set to sale, he is a mere voice,
as [724]he said of a nightingale, _dat sine mente sonum_, an hyperbolical
liar, a flatterer, a parasite, and as [725] Ammianus Marcellinus will, a
corrupting cozener, one that doth more mischief by his fair speeches, than
he that bribes by money; for a man may with more facility avoid him that
circumvents by money, than him that deceives with glozing terms; which made
[726]Socrates so much abhor and explode them. [727]Fracastorius, a famous
poet, freely grants all poets to be mad; so doth [728]Scaliger; and who
doth not? _Aut insanit homo, aut versus facit_ (He's mad or making verses),
Hor. _Sat. vii. l. 2._ _Insanire lubet, i. versus componere._ Virg. _3
Ecl._; so Servius interprets it, all poets are mad, a company of bitter
satirists, detractors, or else parasitical applauders: and what is poetry
itself, but as Austin holds, _Vinum erroris ab ebriis doctoribus
propinatum_? You may give that censure of them in general, which Sir Thomas
More once did of Germanus Brixius' poems in particular.

------"vehuntur
In rate stultitiae sylvam habitant Furiae."[729]

Budaeus, in an epistle of his to Lupsetus, will have civil law to be the
tower of wisdom; another honours physic, the quintessence of nature; a
third tumbles them both down, and sets up the flag of his own peculiar
science. Your supercilious critics, grammatical triflers, note-makers,
curious antiquaries, find out all the ruins of wit, _ineptiarum delicias_,
amongst the rubbish of old writers; [730]_Pro stultis habent nisi aliquid