drunkenness, if Cato were drunk, it should be no vice at all to be drunk.  They reprove Plato then, but without cause (as [4426]Ficinus pleads) “for all love is honest and good, and they are worthy to be loved that speak well of love.”  Being to speak of this admirable affection of love (saith [4427]Valleriola) “there lies open a vast and philosophical field to my discourse, by which many lovers become mad; let me leave my more serious meditations, wander in these philosophical fields, and look into those pleasant groves of the Muses, where with unspeakable variety of flowers, we may make garlands to ourselves, not to adorn us only, but with their pleasant smell and juice to nourish our souls, and fill our minds desirous of knowledge,” &c.  After a harsh and unpleasing discourse of melancholy, which hath hitherto molested your patience, and tired the author, give him leave with [4428]Godefridus the lawyer, and Laurentius (cap. 5.) to recreate himself in this kind after his laborious studies, “since so many grave divines and worthy men have without offence to manners, to help themselves and others, voluntarily written of it.”  Heliodorus, a bishop, penned a love story of Theagines and Chariclea, and when some Catos of his time reprehended him for it, chose rather, saith [4429]Nicephorus, to leave his bishopric than his book.  Aeneas Sylvius, an ancient divine, and past forty years of age, (as [4430]he confesseth himself, after Pope Pius Secundus) indited that wanton history of Euryalus and Lucretia.  And how many superintendents of learning could I reckon up that have written of light fantastical subjects?  Beroaldus, Erasmus, Alpheratius, twenty-four times printed in Spanish, &c.  Give me leave then to refresh my muse a little, and my weary readers, to expatiate in this delightsome field, hoc deliciarum campo, as Fonseca terms it, to [4431] season a surly discourse with a more pleasing aspersion of love matters:  Edulcare vitam convenit, as the poet invites us, curas nugis, &c., ’tis good to sweeten our life with some pleasing toys to relish it, and as Pliny tells us, magna pars studiosorum amaenitates quaerimus, most of our students love such pleasant [4432]subjects.  Though Macrobius teach us otherwise, [4433]"that those old sages banished all such light tracts from their studies, to nurse’s cradles, to please only the ear;” yet out of Apuleius I will oppose as honourable patrons, Solon, Plato, [4434] Xenophon, Adrian, &c. that as highly approve of these treatises.  On the other side methinks they are not to be disliked, they are not so unfit.  I will not peremptorily say as one did [4435]_tam suavia dicam facinora, ut male sit ei qui talibus non delectetur_, I will tell you such pretty stories, that foul befall him that is not pleased with them; Neque dicam ea quae vobis usui sit audivisse, et voluptati meminisse, with that confidence, as Beroaldus doth his enarrations on Propertius.  I will not expert or hope for that approbation, which