They meditate the dreams of old sick men,
As, 'Out of nothing, nothing can be brought;
And that which is, can ne'er be turn'd to nought.'"

Thus they go commonly meditating unto themselves, thus they sit, such is
their action and gesture. Fulgosus, _l. 8, c. 7_, makes mention how Th.
Aquinas supping with king Lewis of France, upon a sudden knocked his fist
upon the table, and cried, _conclusum est contra Manichaeos_, his wits were
a wool-gathering, as they say, and his head busied about other matters,
when he perceived his error, he was much [1994]abashed. Such a story there
is of Archimedes in Vitruvius, that having found out the means to know how
much gold was mingled with the silver in king Hieron's crown, ran naked
forth of the bath and cried [Greek: heuraeka], I have found: [1995]"and was
commonly so intent to his studies, that he never perceived what was done
about him: when the city was taken, and the soldiers now ready to rifle his
house, he took no notice of it." St. Bernard rode all day long by the
Lemnian lake, and asked at last where he was, Marullus, _lib. 2, cap. 4._
It was Democritus's carriage alone that made the Abderites suppose him to
have been mad, and send for Hippocrates to cure him: if he had been in any
solemn company, he would upon all occasions fall a laughing. Theophrastus
saith as much of Heraclitus, for that he continually wept, and Laertius of
Menedemus Lampsacus, because he ran like a madman, [1996]saying, "he came
from hell as a spy, to tell the devils what mortal men did." Your greatest
students are commonly no better, silly, soft fellows in their outward
behaviour, absurd, ridiculous to others, and no whit experienced in worldly
business; they can measure the heavens, range over the world, teach others
wisdom, and yet in bargains and contracts they are circumvented by every
base tradesman. Are not these men fools? and how should they be otherwise,
"but as so many sots in schools, when" (as [1997]he well observed) "they
neither hear nor see such things as are commonly practised abroad?" how
should they get experience, by what means? [1998]"I knew in my time many
scholars," saith Aeneas Sylvius (in an epistle of his to Gasper Scitick,
chancellor to the emperor), "excellent well learned, but so rude, so silly,
that they had no common civility, nor knew how to manage their domestic or
public affairs." "Paglarensis was amazed, and said his farmer had surely
cozened hi