[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 been their bane.  For, [3550]_malus malum vult ut sit sui similis_; one drunkard in a company, one thief, one whoremaster, will by his goodwill make all the rest as bad as himself,

[3551]  ------“Et si
Nocturnos jures te formidare vapores,”

be of what complexion you will, inclination, love or hate, be it good or bad, if you come amongst them, you must do as they do; yea, [3552]though it be to the prejudice of your health, you must drink venenum pro vino.  And so like grasshoppers, whilst they sing over their cups all summer, they starve in winter; and for a little vain merriment shall find a sorrowful reckoning in the end.

SECT.  III.  MEMB.  I. A Consolatory Digression, containing the Remedies of all manner of Discontents.

Because in the preceding section I have made mention of good counsel, comfortable speeches, persuasion, how necessarily they are required to the cure of a discontented or troubled mind, how present a remedy they yield, and many times a sole sufficient cure of themselves; I have thought fit in this following section, a little to digress (if at least it be to digress in this subject), to collect and glean a few remedies, and comfortable speeches out of our best orators, philosophers, divines, and fathers of the church, tending to this purpose.  I confess, many