Note 221 — LIBRO SECONDO (continued 3)
Reading edition
«But old Nicias is the glory of the piece. We cannot call to mind anything that resembles him. The follies which Molière ridicules are those of affectation, not those of fatuity. Coxcombs and pedants, not absolute simpletons are his game. Shakspeare has indeed a vast assortment of fools; but the precise species of which we speak is not, if we remember right, to be found there.... Cloten is an arrogant fool, Osiric a foppish fool, Ajax a savage fool; but Nicias is, as Thersites says of Patroclus, a fool positive.» Macaulay, Essays, vol. I, pag. 87.