Stephani de Malescot Iuriscos. ac Belarborensis Theophilologi, de Nuptiis Liber Paradoxicus, nova & recenti methodo compositus

...wise men, but rather covered with every stain and mark of vice, not priests of truth but soaked in perverse morals, they would flow down into the sea of the ancients, the Ionian, something Greek and harboring, and regarding virtue, worthy of a happy genius, they would slide into the lower, Tuscan, barbarian, jagged, and hostile things. O immortal God, that same iron age thrives in this present storm. Justice has left the lands, equity is dead, truth has gradually degenerated, and having abandoned the fountains, whatever remained spilled itself more turbidly outside its channel into less pure pools, in which it is to be lamented that many good talents have been submerged. Thus, no spark of virtue seems to flourish or shine among mortals. Who, therefore, will wonder now that infinite numbers feign the Curius referring to Manius Curius Dentatus, a symbol of ancient Roman austerity and live like Bacchanals? That they wear the image of a noble character on their foreheads and with the bland words of Gnathos a flatterer from Terence's Eunuchus, while in their retreat and heart they devise all the inconveniences of envy against the best men with deceit and cunning?