| E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898. |
| | | Limbus Fatuo’rum. | | |
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The Limbus of Fools, or Fool’s Paradise. As fools are not responsible for their works, they are not punished in Purgatory, but cannot be received into Heaven; so they go to a place called the Paradise of Fools. | 1 |
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| “Then might you see |
| Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers tossed |
| And fluttered into rags; then relics, beads, |
| Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls, |
| The sport of winds. All these, upwhirled aloft, |
| Into a Limbo large and broad, since called |
| The Paradise of Fools.” | |
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Milton: Paradise Lost, book iii. 489–95. |
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 One cannot wonder that Milton’s great poem was placed by the Catholics in the Index of books forbidden. | 2 |
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