Note, 1. It is too common a thing for honour to be given to fools, who
are utterly unworthy of it and unfit for it. Bad men, who have neither
wit nor grace, are sometimes preferred by princes, and applauded and
cried up by the people. Folly is set in great dignity, as Solomon
observed, Eccl. x. 6. 2. It is very absurd and unbecoming when it is
so. It is an incongruous as snow in summer, and as great a disorder in
the commonwealth as that is in the course of nature and in the seasons
of the year; nay, it is as injurious as rain in harvest, which hinders
the labourers and spoils the fruits of the earth when they are ready to
be gathered. When bad men are in power they commonly abuse their power,
in discouraging virtue, and giving countenance to wickedness, for want
of wisdom to discern it and grace to detest it.