[89]    ------“Qui talia legit,
Quid didicit tandem, quid scit nisi somnia, nugas?”

So that oftentimes it falls out (which Callimachus taxed of old) a great book is a great mischief. [90]Cardan finds fault with Frenchmen and Germans, for their scribbling to no purpose, non inquit ab edendo deterreo, modo novum aliquid inveniant, he doth not bar them to write, so that it be some new invention of their own; but we weave the same web still, twist the same rope again and again; or if it be a new invention, ’tis but some bauble or toy which idle fellows write, for as idle fellows to read, and who so cannot invent? [91]"He must have a barren wit, that in this scribbling age can forge nothing. [92]Princes show their armies, rich men vaunt their buildings, soldiers their manhood, and scholars vent their toys;” they must read, they must hear whether they will or no.

[93] “Et quodcunque semel chartis illeverit, omnes
        Gestiet a furno redeuntes scire lacuque,
        Et pueros et anus”------

       “What once is said and writ, all men must know,
        Old wives and children as they come and go.”

“What a company of poets hath this year brought out,” as Pliny complains to Sossius Sinesius. [94]"This April every day some or other have recited.”  What a catalogue of new books all this year, all this age (I say), have our Frankfort Marts, our domestic Marts brought out?  Twice a year, [95] Proferunt se nova ingenia et ostentant, we stretch our wits out, and set them to sale, magno conatu nihil agimus.  So that which [96]Gesner much desires, if a speedy reformation be not had, by some prince’s edicts and grave supervisors, to restrain this liberty, it will run on in infinitum. Quis tam avidus librorum helluo, who can read them?  As already, we shall have a vast chaos and confusion of books, we are [97]oppressed with them, [98]our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.  For my part I am one of the number, nos numerus sumus, (we are mere ciphers):  I do not deny it, I have only this of Macrobius to say for myself, Omne meum, nihil meum, ’tis all mine, and none mine.  As a good housewife out of divers fleeces weaves one piece of cloth, a bee gathers wax and honey out of many flowers, and makes a new bundle of all, Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant, I have laboriously [99]collected this cento out of divers writers, and that sine injuria, I have wronged no authors, but given every man his own; which [100]Hierom so much commends in Nepotian; he stole not whole verses, pages, tracts, as some do nowadays, concealing their authors’ names, but still said this was Cyprian’s, that Lactantius, that Hilarius, so said Minutius Felix, so Victorinus, thus far Arnobius:  I cite and quote mine authors (which, howsoever some illiterate scribblers account pedantical, as a cloak of ignorance, and opposite to their affected fine style, I must