But as Demeo told him, tu illum corrumpi sinis, your lenity will be his undoing, praevidere videor jam diem, illum, quum hic egens profugiet aliquo militatum, I foresee his ruin.  So parents often err, many fond mothers especially, dote so much upon their children, like [2130]Aesop’s ape, till in the end they crush them to death, Corporum nutrices animarum novercae, pampering up their bodies to the undoing of their souls:  they will not let them be [2131]corrected or controlled, but still soothed up in everything they do, that in conclusion “they bring sorrow, shame, heaviness to their parents” (Ecclus. cap. xxx. 8, 9), “become wanton, stubborn, wilful, and disobedient;” rude, untaught, headstrong, incorrigible, and graceless; “they love them so foolishly,” saith [2132]Cardan, “that they rather seem to hate them, bringing them not up to virtue but injury, not to learning but to riot, not to sober life and conversation, but to all pleasure and licentious behaviour.”  Who is he of so little experience that knows not this of Fabius to be true? [2133]"Education is another nature, altering the mind and will, and I would to God” (saith he) “we ourselves did not spoil our children’s manners, by our overmuch cockering and nice education, and weaken the strength of their bodies and minds, that causeth custom, custom nature,” &c.  For these causes Plutarch in his book de lib. educ. and Hierom. epist. lib. 1. epist. 17. to Laeta de institut. filiae, gives a most especial charge to all parents, and many good cautions about bringing up of children, that they be not committed to indiscreet, passionate, bedlam tutors, light, giddy-headed, or covetous persons, and spare for no cost, that they may be well nurtured and taught, it being a matter of so great consequence.  For such parents as do otherwise, Plutarch esteems of them [2134]"that are more careful of their shoes than of their feet,” that rate their wealth above their children.  And he, saith [2135]Cardan, “that leaves his son to a covetous schoolmaster to be informed, or to a close Abbey to fast and learn wisdom together, doth no other, than that he be a learned fool, or a sickly wise man.”

SUBSECT.  III.—­Terrors and Affrights, Causes of Melancholy.

Tully, in the fourth of his Tusculans, distinguishes these terrors which arise from the apprehension of some terrible object heard or seen, from other fears, and so doth Patritius lib. 5.  Tit. 4. de regis institut. Of all fears they are most pernicious and violent, and so suddenly alter the whole temperature of the body, move the soul and spirits, strike such a deep impression, that the parties can never be recovered, causing more grievous and fiercer melancholy, as Felix Plater, c. 3. de mentis alienat. [2136]speaks out of his experience, than any inward cause whatsoever:  “and imprints itself so forcibly in the spirits, brain, humours, that if all the mass of blood were let out of the body, it could hardly be extracted.