Aedes quando sunt ad amussim expolitae,
Quisque laudat fabrum, atque exemplum expetit, &c.
At ubi illo migrat nequam homo indiligensque, &c.
Tempestas venit, confringit tegulas, imbricesque,
Putrifacit aer operam fabri, &c.
Dicam ut homines similes esse aedium arbitremini,
Fabri parentes fundamentum substruunt liberorum,
Expoliunt, docent literas, nec parcunt sumptui,
Ego autem sub fabrorum potestate frugi fui,
Postquam autem migravi in ingenium meum,
Perdidi operam fabrorum illico oppido,
Venit ignavia, ea mihi tempestas fuit,
Adventuque suo grandinem et imbrem attulit,
Illa mihi virtutem deturbavit," &c.

A young man is like a fair new house, the carpenter leaves it well built,
in good repair, of solid stuff; but a bad tenant lets it rain in, and for
want of reparation, fall to decay, &c. Our parents, tutors, friends, spare
no cost to bring us up in our youth, in all manner of virtuous education;
but when we are left to ourselves, idleness as a tempest drives all
virtuous motions out of our minds, et _nihili sumus_, on a sudden, by sloth
and such bad ways, we come to nought.

Cousin german to idleness, and a concomitant cause, which goes hand in hand
with it, is [1558]_nimia solitudo_, too much solitariness, by the testimony
of all physicians, cause and symptom both; but as it is here put for a
cause, it is either coact, enforced, or else voluntary. Enforced
solitariness is commonly seen in students, monks, friars, anchorites, that
by their order and course of life must abandon all company, society of
other men, and betake themselves to a private cell: _Otio superstitioso