d, I say, to heraldry,
antiquity, invent impresses, emblems; make epithalamiums, epitaphs,
elegies, epigrams, palindroma epigrammata, anagrams, chronograms,
acrostics, upon his friends' names; or write a comment on Martianus
Capella, Tertullian _de pallio_, the Nubian geography, or upon Aelia Laelia
Crispis, as many idle fellows have essayed; and rather than do nothing,
vary a [3370]verse a thousand ways with Putean, so torturing his wits, or
as Rainnerus of Luneburg, [3371]2150 times in his _Proteus Poeticus_, or
Scaliger, Chrysolithus, Cleppissius, and others, have in like sort done. If
such voluntary tasks, pleasure and delight, or crabbedness of these
studies, will not yet divert their idle thoughts, and alienate their
imaginations, they must be compelled, saith Christophorus a Vega, _cogi
debent_, _l. 5. c. 14_, upon some mulct, if they perform it not, _quod ex
officio incumbat_, loss of credit or disgrace, such as our public
University exercises. For, as he that plays for nothing will not heed his
game; no more will voluntary employment so thoroughly affect a student,
except he be very intent of himself, and take an extraordinary delight in
the study, about which he is conversant. It should be of that nature his
business, which _volens nolens_ he must necessarily undergo, and without
great loss, mulct, shame, or hindrance, he may not omit.

Now for women, instead of laborious studies, they have curious needleworks,
cut-works, spinning, bone-lace, and many pretty devices of their own
making, to adorn their houses, cushions, carpets, chairs, stools, ("for she
eats not the bread of idleness," Prov. xxxi. 27. _quaesivit lanam et
linum_) confections, conserves, distillations, &c., which they show to
strangers.

[3372] "Ipsa comes praesesque operis venientibus ultro
Hospitibus monstrare solet, non segniter horas
Contestata suas, sed nec sibi depertisse."

"Which to her guests she shows, with all her pelf,
Thus far my maids, but this I did myself."

This they have to busy themselves about, household offices, &c., [3373]
neat gardens, full of exotic, versicolour, diversely varied, sweet-smelling
flowers, and plants in all kinds, which they are most ambitious to get,
curious to preserve and keep, proud to possess, and much many times brag
of. Their merry meetings and frequent visitations, mutual invitations in
good towns, I voluntarily omit, which are so much in use, gossiping among
the m