In Egypt oft has seen the sot bow down,
And reverence some deified baboon.
Oldham, Eighth Satire of Boileau.
I do not here speak of a legal innocence (none but sots and Quakers dream of such things), for as St. Paul says, ‘By the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified;’ but I speak of an evangelical innocence.—South, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 427.
He [Perseus] commanded those poor divers to be secretly murdered, that no person should remain alive that was privy to that sottish commandment of his.—Holland, Livy, p. 1177.
A leper once he lost, and gained a king,
Ahaz his sottish conqueror, whom he drew
God’s altar to disparage and displace
For one of Syrian mode.
Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 471.