herefore neglect their business; and in
another extreme, spend all their days among good fellows in a tavern or an
alehouse, and know not otherwise how to bestow their time but in drinking;
malt-worms, men-fishes, or water-snakes, [3546]_Qui bibunt solum ranarum
more, nihil comedentes_, like so many frogs in a puddle. 'Tis their sole
exercise to eat, and drink; to sacrifice to Volupia, Rumina, Edulica,
Potina, Mellona, is all their religion. They wish for Philoxenus' neck,
Jupiter's trinoctium, and that the sun would stand still as in Joshua's
time, to satisfy their lust, that they might _dies noctesque pergraecari et
bibere_. Flourishing wits, and men of good parts, good fashion, and good
worth, basely prostitute themselves to every rogue's company, to take
tobacco and drink, to roar and sing scurrilous songs in base places.

[3547] "Invenies aliquem cum percussore jacentem,
Permistum nautis, aut furibus, aut fugitivis."

Which Thomas Erastus objects to Paracelsus, that he would be drinking all
day long with carmen and tapsters in a brothel-house, is too frequent among
us, with men of better note: like Timocreon of Rhodes, _multa bibens, et
multa vorans_, &c. They drown their wits, seethe their brains in ale,
consume their fortunes, lose their time, weaken their temperatures,
contract filthy diseases, rheums, dropsies, calentures, tremor, get swollen
jugulars, pimpled red faces, sore eyes, &c.; heat their livers, alter their
complexions, spoil their stomachs, overthrow their bodies; for drink drowns
more than the sea and all the rivers that fall into it (mere funges and
casks), confound their souls, suppress reason, go from Scylla to Charybdis,
and use that which is a help to their undoing. [3548]_Quid refert morbo an
ferro pereamve ruina_? [3549]When the Black Prince went to set the exiled
king of Castile into his kingdom, there was a terrible battle fought
between the English and the Spanish: at last the Spanish fled, the English
followed them to the river side, where some drowned themselves to avoid
their enemies, the rest were killed. Now tell me what difference is between
drowning and killing? As good be melancholy still, as drunken beasts and
beggars. Company a sole comfort, and an only remedy to all kind of
discontent, is their sole misery and cause of perdition. As Hermione
lamented in Euripides, _malae mulieres me fecerunt malam_. Evil company
marred her, may they justly complain, bad companions have be