mselves gone or dead, or else earned away
with some foolish phantasy or other. And this is the true cause that so
many great men, ladies, and gentlewomen, labour of this disease in country
and city; for idleness is an appendix to nobility; they count it a disgrace
to work, and spend all their days in sports, recreations, and pastimes, and
will therefore take no pains; be of no vocation: they feed liberally, fare
well, want exercise, action, employment, (for to work, I say, they may not
abide,) and Company to their desires, and thence their bodies become full
of gross humours, wind, crudities; their minds disquieted, dull, heavy, &c.
care, jealousy, fear of some diseases, sullen fits, weeping fits seize too
[1552]familiarly on them. For what will not fear and phantasy work in an
idle body? what distempers will they not cause? when the children of [1553]
Israel murmured against Pharaoh in Egypt, he commanded his officers to
double their task, and let them get straw themselves, and yet make their
full number of bricks; for the sole cause why they mutiny, and are evil at
ease, is, "they are idle." When you shall hear and see so many discontented
persons in all places where you come, so many several grievances,
unnecessary complaints, fears, suspicions, [1554]the best means to redress
it is to set them awork, so to busy their minds; for the truth is, they are
idle. Well they may build castles in the air for a time, and sooth up
themselves with fantastical and pleasant humours, but in the end they will
prove as bitter as gall, they shall be still I say discontent, suspicious,
[1555]fearful, jealous, sad, fretting and vexing of themselves; so long as
they be idle, it is impossible to please them, _Otio qui nescit uti, plus
habet negotii quam qui negotium in negotio_, as that [1556]Agellius could
observe: He that knows not how to spend his time, hath more business, care,
grief, anguish of mind, than he that is most busy in the midst of all his
business. _Otiosus animus nescit quid volet_: An idle person (as he follows
it) knows not when he is well, what he would have, or whither he would go,
_Quum illuc ventum est, illinc lubet_, he is tired out with everything,
displeased with all, weary of his life: _Nec bene domi, nec militiae_,
neither at home nor abroad, _errat, et praeter vitam vivitur_, he wanders
and lives besides himself. In a word, What the mischievous effects of
laziness and idleness are, I do not find any where more acc