As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool.
Ver. 1. So honour is not seemly for a fool.] Honour is the reward of virtue; dignity should wait upon desert. Sed dignitas in indigno est ornamentum in luto, as Salvian. Honour is as fit for a fool as a gold ring for a swine's snout. Sedes prima et vita ima, will never suit. The order of nature is inverted when the vilest men are exalted; Psa 12:8 it is a foul incongruity, and of very evil consequence. For thereby themselves will be hardened, and others heartened to the like prosperous folly, felix enim scelus virtus vocatur, saith Cicero. a The study of virtue also will be neglected when fools are preferred, and God's heavy wrath poured out in full measure upon these uncircumcised vice-gods - as I may in the worst sense best term them - who misrepresent him to the world by their ungodly practices, as a wicked, crooked, unrighteous Judge.
a Cicer., De Divinat., lib. ii.