initial commit of ebook 9371HEADmain

4 files changed, 6840 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/7efly10.txt b/old/7efly10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ddacad9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/7efly10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3420 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Praise of Folly, by Desiderius Erasmus
+#2 in our series by Desiderius Erasmus
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Praise of Folly
+
+Author: Desiderius Erasmus
+
+Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9371]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 26, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRAISE OF FOLLY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Shimmin and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+                           DESIDERIUS ERASMUS
+
+                          THE PRAISE OF FOLLY
+
+
+
+                        Translated by John Wilson
+                                  1668
+
+
+
+                          ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM
+                              to his friend
+                          THOMAS MORE, health:
+
+
+As I was coming awhile since out of Italy for England, that I might not
+waste all that time I was to sit on horseback in foolish and illiterate
+fables, I chose rather one while to revolve with myself something of our
+common studies, and other while to enjoy the remembrance of my friends,
+of whom I left here some no less learned than pleasant. Among these you,
+my More, came first in my mind, whose memory, though absent yourself,
+gives me such delight in my absence, as when present with you I ever
+found in your company; than which, let me perish if in all my life I ever
+met with anything more delectable. And therefore, being satisfied that
+something was to be done, and that that time was no wise proper for any
+serious matter, I resolved to make some sport with the praise of folly.
+But who the devil put that in your head? you'll say. The first thing was
+your surname of More, which comes so near the word _Moriae_ (folly) as
+you are far from the thing. And that you are so, all the world will clear
+you. In the next place, I conceived this exercise of wit would not be
+least approved by you; inasmuch as you are wont to be delighted with such
+kind of mirth, that is to say, neither unlearned, if I am not mistaken,
+nor altogether insipid, and in the whole course of your life have played
+the part of a Democritus. And though such is the excellence of your
+judgment that it was ever contrary to that of the people's, yet such is
+your incredible affability and sweetness of temper that you both can and
+delight to carry yourself to all men a man of all hours. Wherefore you
+will not only with good will accept this small declamation, but take upon
+you the defense of it, for as much as being dedicated to you, it is now
+no longer mine but yours. But perhaps there will not be wanting some
+wranglers that may cavil and charge me, partly that these toys are
+lighter than may become a divine, and partly more biting than may beseem
+the modesty of a Christian, and consequently exclaim that I resemble the
+ancient comedy, or another Lucian, and snarl at everything. But I would
+have them whom the lightness or foolery of the argument may offend to
+consider that mine is not the first of this kind, but the same thing that
+has been often practiced even by great authors: when Homer, so many ages
+since, did the like with the battle of frogs and mice; Virgil, with the
+gnat and puddings; Ovid, with the nut; when Polycrates and his corrector
+Isocrates extolled tyranny; Glauco, injustice; Favorinus, deformity and
+the quartan ague; Synescius, baldness; Lucian, the fly and flattery; when
+Seneca made such sport with Claudius' canonizations; Plutarch, with his
+dialogue between Ulysses and Gryllus; Lucian and Apuleius, with the ass;
+and some other, I know not who, with the hog that made his last will and
+testament, of which also even St. Jerome makes mention. And therefore if
+they please, let them suppose I played at tables for my diversion, or if
+they had rather have it so, that I rode on a hobbyhorse. For what
+injustice is it that when we allow every course of life its recreation,
+that study only should have none? Especially when such toys are not
+without their serious matter, and foolery is so handled that the reader
+that is not altogether thick-skulled may reap more benefit from it than
+from some men's crabbish and specious arguments. As when one, with long
+study and great pains, patches many pieces together on the praise of
+rhetoric or philosophy; another makes a panegyric to a prince; another
+encourages him to a war against the Turks; another tells you what will
+become of the world after himself is dead; and another finds out some new
+device for the better ordering of goat's wool: for as nothing is more
+trifling than to treat of serious matters triflingly, so nothing carries
+a better grace than so to discourse of trifles as a man may seem to have
+intended them least. For my own part, let other men judge of what I have
+written; though yet, unless an overweening opinion of myself may have
+made me blind in my own cause, I have praised folly, but not altogether
+foolishly. And now to say somewhat to that other cavil, of biting. This
+liberty was ever permitted to all men's wits, to make their smart, witty
+reflections on the common errors of mankind, and that too without
+offense, as long as this liberty does not run into licentiousness; which
+makes me the more admire the tender ears of the men of this age, that can
+away with solemn titles. No, you'll meet with some so preposterously
+religious that they will sooner endure the broadest scoffs even against
+Christ himself than hear the Pope or a prince be touched in the least,
+especially if it be anything that concerns their profit; whereas he that
+so taxes the lives of men, without naming anyone in particular, whither,
+I pray, may he be said to bite, or rather to teach and admonish? Or
+otherwise, I beseech you, under how many notions do I tax myself?
+Besides, he that spares no sort of men cannot be said to be angry with
+anyone in particular, but the vices of all. And therefore, if there shall
+happen to be anyone that shall say he is hit, he will but discover either
+his guilt or fear. Saint Jerome sported in this kind with more freedom
+and greater sharpness, not sparing sometimes men's very name. But I,
+besides that I have wholly avoided it, I have so moderated my style that
+the understanding reader will easily perceive my endeavors herein were
+rather to make mirth than bite. Nor have I, after the example of Juvenal,
+raked up that forgotten sink of filth and ribaldry, but laid before you
+things rather ridiculous than dishonest. And now, if there be anyone that
+is yet dissatisfied, let him at least remember that it is no dishonor to
+be discommended by Folly; and having brought her in speaking, it was but
+fit that I kept up the character of the person. But why do I run over
+these things to you, a person so excellent an advocate that no man better
+defends his client, though the cause many times be none of the best?
+Farewell, my best disputant More, and stoutly defend your _Moriae_.
+
+From the country,
+the 5th of the Ides of June.
+
+
+
+
+                          THE PRAISE OF FOLLY
+
+
+                     An oration, of feigned matter,
+                   spoken by Folly in her own person
+
+
+At what rate soever the world talks of me (for I am not ignorant what an
+ill report Folly has got, even among the most foolish), yet that I am
+that she, that only she, whose deity recreates both gods and men, even
+this is a sufficient argument, that I no sooner stepped up to speak to
+this full assembly than all your faces put on a kind of new and unwonted
+pleasantness. So suddenly have you cleared your brows, and with so frolic
+and hearty a laughter given me your applause, that in truth as many of
+you as I behold on every side of me seem to me no less than Homer's gods
+drunk with nectar and nepenthe; whereas before, you sat as lumpish and
+pensive as if you had come from consulting an oracle. And as it usually
+happens when the sun begins to show his beams, or when after a sharp
+winter the spring breathes afresh on the earth, all things immediately
+get a new face, new color, and recover as it were a certain kind of youth
+again: in like manner, by but beholding me you have in an instant gotten
+another kind of countenance; and so what the otherwise great rhetoricians
+with their tedious and long-studied orations can hardly effect, to wit,
+to remove the trouble of the mind, I have done it at once with my
+single look.
+
+But if you ask me why I appear before you in this strange dress, be
+pleased to lend me your ears, and I'll tell you; not those ears, I mean,
+you carry to church, but abroad with you, such as you are wont to prick
+up to jugglers, fools, and buffoons, and such as our friend Midas once
+gave to Pan. For I am disposed awhile to play the sophist with you; not
+of their sort who nowadays boozle young men's heads with certain empty
+notions and curious trifles, yet teach them nothing but a more than
+womanish obstinacy of scolding: but I'll imitate those ancients who, that
+they might the better avoid that infamous appellation of _sophi_ or
+_wise_, chose rather to be called sophists. Their business was to
+celebrate the praises of the gods and valiant men. And the like encomium
+shall you hear from me, but neither of Hercules nor Solon, but my own
+dear self, that is to say, Folly. Nor do I esteem a rush that call it a
+foolish and insolent thing to praise one's self. Be it as foolish as they
+would make it, so they confess it proper: and what can be more than that
+Folly be her own trumpet? For who can set me out better than myself,
+unless perhaps I could be better known to another than to myself? Though
+yet I think it somewhat more modest than the general practice of our
+nobles and wise men who, throwing away all shame, hire some flattering
+orator or lying poet from whose mouth they may hear their praises, that
+is to say, mere lies; and yet, composing themselves with a seeming
+modesty, spread out their peacock's plumes and erect their crests, while
+this impudent flatterer equals a man of nothing to the gods and proposes
+him as an absolute pattern of all virtue that's wholly a stranger to it,
+sets out a pitiful jay in other's feathers, washes the blackamoor white,
+and lastly swells a gnat to an elephant. In short, I will follow that old
+proverb that says, "He may lawfully praise himself that lives far from
+neighbors." Though, by the way, I cannot but wonder at the ingratitude,
+shall I say, or negligence of men who, notwithstanding they honor me in
+the first place and are willing enough to confess my bounty, yet not one
+of them for these so many ages has there been who in some thankful
+oration has set out the praises of Folly; when yet there has not wanted
+them whose elaborate endeavors have extolled tyrants, agues, flies,
+baldness, and such other pests of nature, to their own loss of both time
+and sleep. And now you shall hear from me a plain extemporary speech, but
+so much the truer. Nor would I have you think it like the rest of
+orators, made for the ostentation of wit; for these, as you know, when
+they have been beating their heads some thirty years about an oration and
+at last perhaps produce somewhat that was never their own, shall yet
+swear they composed it in three days, and that too for diversion: whereas
+I ever liked it best to speak whatever came first out.
+
+But let none of you expect from me that after the manner of rhetoricians
+I should go about to define what I am, much less use any division; for I
+hold it equally unlucky to circumscribe her whose deity is universal, or
+make the least division in that worship about which everything is so
+generally agreed. Or to what purpose, think you, should I describe myself
+when I am here present before you, and you behold me speaking? For I am,
+as you see, that true and only giver of wealth whom the Greeks call
+_Moria_, the Latins _Stultitia_, and our plain English _Folly_. Or what
+need was there to have said so much, as if my very looks were not
+sufficient to inform you who I am? Or as if any man, mistaking me for
+wisdom, could not at first sight convince himself by my face the true
+index of my mind? I am no counterfeit, nor do I carry one thing in my
+looks and another in my breast. No, I am in every respect so like myself
+that neither can they dissemble me who arrogate to themselves the
+appearance and title of wise men and walk like asses in scarlet hoods,
+though after all their hypocrisy Midas' ears will discover their master.
+A most ungrateful generation of men that, when they are wholly given up
+to my party, are yet publicly ashamed of the name, as taking it for a
+reproach; for which cause, since in truth they are _morotatoi_, fools,
+and yet would appear to the world to be wise men and Thales, we'll even
+call them _morosophous_, wise fools.
+
+Nor will it be amiss also to imitate the rhetoricians of our times, who
+think themselves in a manner gods if like horse leeches they can but
+appear to be double-tongued, and believe they have done a mighty act if
+in their Latin orations they can but shuffle in some ends of Greek like
+mosaic work, though altogether by head and shoulders and less to the
+purpose. And if they want hard words, they run over some worm-eaten
+manuscript and pick out half a dozen of the most old and obsolete to
+confound their reader, believing, no doubt, that they that understand
+their meaning will like it the better, and they that do not will admire
+it the more by how much the less they understand it. Nor is this way of
+ours of admiring what seems most foreign without its particular grace;
+for if there happen to be any more ambitious than others, they may give
+their applause with a smile, and, like the ass, shake their ears, that
+they may be thought to understand more than the rest of their neighbors.
+
+But to come to the purpose: I have given you my name, but what epithet
+shall I add? What but that of the most foolish? For by what more proper
+name can so great a goddess as Folly be known to her disciples? And
+because it is not alike known to all from what stock I am sprung, with
+the Muses' good leave I'll do my endeavor to satisfy you. But yet neither
+the first Chaos, Orcus, Saturn, or Japhet, nor any of those threadbare,
+musty gods were my father, but Plutus, Riches; that only he, that is, in
+spite of Hesiod, Homer, nay and Jupiter himself, _divum pater atque
+hominum rex_, the father of gods and men, at whose single beck, as
+heretofore, so at present, all things sacred and profane are turned
+topsy-turvy. According to whose pleasure war, peace, empire, counsels,
+judgments, assemblies, wedlocks, bargains, leagues, laws, arts, all
+things light or serious--I want breath--in short, all the public and
+private business of mankind is governed; without whose help all that herd
+of gods of the poets' making, and those few of the better sort of the
+rest, either would not be at all, or if they were, they would be but such
+as live at home and keep a poor house to themselves. And to whomsoever
+he's an enemy, 'tis not Pallas herself that can befriend him; as on the
+contrary he whom he favors may lead Jupiter and his thunder in a string.
+This is my father and in him I glory. Nor did he produce me from his
+brain, as Jupiter that sour and ill-looked Pallas; but of that lovely
+nymph called Youth, the most beautiful and galliard of all the rest. Nor
+was I, like that limping blacksmith, begot in the sad and irksome bonds
+of matrimony. Yet, mistake me not, 'twas not that blind and decrepit
+Plutus in Aristophanes that got me, but such as he was in his full
+strength and pride of youth; and not that only, but at such a time when
+he had been well heated with nectar, of which he had, at one of the
+banquets of the gods, taken a dose extraordinary.
+
+And as to the place of my birth, forasmuch as nowadays that is looked
+upon as a main point of nobility, it was neither, like Apollo's, in the
+floating Delos, nor Venus-like on the rolling sea, nor in any of blind
+Homer's as blind caves: but in the Fortunate Islands, where all things
+grew without plowing or sowing; where neither labor, nor old age, nor
+disease was ever heard of; and in whose fields neither daffodil, mallows,
+onions, beans, and such contemptible things would ever grow, but, on the
+contrary, rue, angelica, bugloss, marjoram, trefoils, roses, violets,
+lilies, and all the gardens of Adonis invite both your sight and your
+smelling. And being thus born, I did not begin the world, as other
+children are wont, with crying; but straight perched up and smiled on my
+mother. Nor do I envy to the great Jupiter the goat, his nurse, forasmuch
+as I was suckled by two jolly nymphs, to wit, Drunkenness, the daughter
+of Bacchus, and Ignorance, of Pan. And as for such my companions and
+followers as you perceive about me, if you have a mind to know who they
+are, you are not like to be the wiser for me, unless it be in Greek: this
+here, which you observe with that proud cast of her eye, is _Philantia_,
+Self-love; she with the smiling countenance, that is ever and anon
+clapping her hands, is _Kolakia_, Flattery; she that looks as if she were
+half asleep is _Lethe_, Oblivion; she that sits leaning on both elbows
+with her hands clutched together is _Misoponia_, Laziness; she with the
+garland on her head, and that smells so strong of perfumes, is _Hedone_,
+Pleasure; she with those staring eyes, moving here and there, is _Anoia_,
+Madness; she with the smooth skin and full pampered body is _Tryphe_,
+Wantonness; and, as to the two gods that you see with them, the one is
+_Komos_, Intemperance, the other _Eegretos hypnos_, Dead Sleep. These, I
+say, are my household servants, and by their faithful counsels I have
+subjected all things to my dominion and erected an empire over emperors
+themselves. Thus have you had my lineage, education, and companions.
+
+And now, lest I may seem to have taken upon me the name of goddess
+without cause, you shall in the next place understand how far my deity
+extends, and what advantage by it I have brought both to gods and men.
+For, if it was not unwisely said by somebody, that this only is to be a
+god, to help men; and if they are deservedly enrolled among the gods that
+first brought in corn and wine and such other things as are for the
+common good of mankind, why am not I of right the _alpha_, or first, of
+all the gods? who being but one, yet bestow all things on all men. For
+first, what is more sweet or more precious than life? And yet from whom
+can it more properly be said to come than from me? For neither the
+crab-favoured Pallas' spear nor the cloud-gathering Jupiter's shield
+either beget or propagate mankind; but even he himself, the father of
+gods and king of men at whose very beck the heavens shake, must lay by
+his forked thunder and those looks wherewith he conquered the giants
+and with which at pleasure he frightens the rest of the gods, and like
+a common stage player put on a disguise as often as he goes about that,
+which now and then he does, that is to say the getting of children: And
+the Stoics too, that conceive themselves next to the gods, yet show me
+one of them, nay the veriest bigot of the sect, and if he do not put off
+his beard, the badge of wisdom, though yet it be no more than what is
+common with him and goats; yet at least he must lay by his supercilious
+gravity, smooth his forehead, shake off his rigid principles, and for
+some time commit an act of folly and dotage. In fine, that wise man
+whoever he be, if he intends to have children, must have recourse to me.
+But tell me, I beseech you, what man is that would submit his neck to
+the noose of wedlock, if, as wise men should, he did but first truly
+weigh the inconvenience of the thing? Or what woman is there would ever
+go to it did she seriously consider either the peril of child-bearing or
+the trouble of bringing them up? So then, if you owe your beings to
+wedlock, you owe that wedlock to this my follower, Madness; and what
+you owe to me I have already told you. Again, she that has but once
+tried what it is, would she, do you think, make a second venture if it
+were not for my other companion, Oblivion? Nay, even Venus herself,
+notwithstanding whatever Lucretius has said, would not deny but that
+all her virtue were lame and fruitless without the help of my deity.
+For out of that little, odd, ridiculous May-game came the supercilious
+philosophers, in whose room have succeeded a kind of people the world
+calls monks, cardinals, priests, and the most holy popes. And lastly,
+all that rabble of the poets' gods, with which heaven is so thwacked
+and thronged, that though it be of so vast an extent, they are hardly
+able to crowd one by another.
+
+But I think it is a small matter that you thus owe your beginning of life
+to me, unless I also show you that whatever benefit you receive in the
+progress of it is of my gift likewise. For what other is this? Can that
+be called life where you take away pleasure? Oh! Do you like what I say?
+I knew none of you could have so little wit, or so much folly, or wisdom
+rather, as to be of any other opinion. For even the Stoics themselves
+that so severely cried down pleasure did but handsomely dissemble, and
+railed against it to the common people to no other end but that having
+discouraged them from it, they might the more plentifully enjoy it
+themselves. But tell me, by Jupiter, what part of man's life is that that
+is not sad, crabbed, unpleasant, insipid, troublesome, unless it be
+seasoned with pleasure, that is to say, folly? For the proof of which the
+never sufficiently praised Sophocles in that his happy elegy of us, "To
+know nothing is the only happiness," might be authority enough, but that
+I intend to take every particular by itself.
+
+And first, who knows not but a man's infancy is the merriest part of life
+to himself, and most acceptable to others? For what is that in them which
+we kiss, embrace, cherish, nay enemies succor, but this witchcraft of
+folly, which wise Nature did of purpose give them into the world with
+them that they might the more pleasantly pass over the toil of education,
+and as it were flatter the care and diligence of their nurses? And then
+for youth, which is in such reputation everywhere, how do all men favor
+it, study to advance it, and lend it their helping hand? And whence, I
+pray, all this grace? Whence but from me? by whose kindness, as it
+understands as little as may be, it is also for that reason the higher
+privileged from exceptions; and I am mistaken if, when it is grown up and
+by experience and discipline brought to savor something like man, if in
+the same instant that beauty does not fade, its liveliness decay, its
+pleasantness grow flat, and its briskness fail. And by how much the
+further it runs from me, by so much the less it lives, till it comes to
+the burden of old age, not only hateful to others, but to itself also.
+Which also were altogether insupportable did not I pity its condition, in
+being present with it, and, as the poets' gods were wont to assist such
+as were dying with some pleasant metamorphosis, help their decrepitness
+as much as in me lies by bringing them back to a second childhood, from
+whence they are not improperly called twice children. Which, if you ask
+me how I do it, I shall not be shy in the point. I bring them to our
+River Lethe (for its springhead rises in the Fortunate Islands, and that
+other of hell is but a brook in comparison), from which, as soon as they
+have drunk down a long forgetfulness, they wash away by degrees the
+perplexity of their minds, and so wax young again.
+
+But perhaps you'll say they are foolish and doting. Admit it; 'tis the
+very essence of childhood; as if to be such were not to be a fool, or
+that that condition had anything pleasant in it, but that it understood
+nothing. For who would not look upon that child as a prodigy that should
+have as much wisdom as a man?--according to that common proverb, "I do
+not like a child that is a man too soon." Or who would endure a converse
+or friendship with that old man who to so large an experience of things
+had joined an equal strength of mind and sharpness of judgment? And
+therefore for this reason it is that old age dotes; and that it does so,
+it is beholding to me. Yet, notwithstanding, is this dotard exempt from
+all those cares that distract a wise man; he is not the less pot
+companion, nor is he sensible of that burden of life which the more manly
+age finds enough to do to stand upright under it. And sometimes too, like
+Plautus' old man, he returns to his three letters, A.M.O., the most
+unhappy of all things living, if he rightly understood what he did in it.
+And yet, so much do I befriend him that I make him well received of his
+friends and no unpleasant companion; for as much as, according to Homer,
+Nestor's discourse was pleasanter than honey, whereas Achilles' was both
+bitter and malicious; and that of old men, as he has it in another place,
+florid. In which respect also they have this advantage of children, in
+that they want the only pleasure of the others' life, we'll suppose it
+prattling. Add to this that old men are more eagerly delighted with
+children, and they, again, with old men. "Like to like," quoted the Devil
+to the collier. For what difference between them, but that the one has
+more wrinkles and years upon his head than the other? Otherwise, the
+brightness of their hair, toothless mouth, weakness of body, love of
+mild, broken speech, chatting, toying, forgetfulness, inadvertency, and
+briefly, all other their actions agree in everything. And by how much the
+nearer they approach to this old age, by so much they grow backward into
+the likeness of children, until like them they pass from life to death,
+without any weariness of the one, or sense of the other.
+
+And now, let him that will compare the benefits they receive by me, the
+metamorphoses of the gods, of whom I shall not mention what they have
+done in their pettish humors but where they have been most favorable:
+turning one into a tree, another into a bird, a third into a grasshopper,
+serpent, or the like. As if there were any difference between perishing
+and being another thing! But I restore the same man to the best and
+happiest part of his life. And if men would but refrain from all commerce
+with wisdom and give up themselves to be governed by me, they should
+never know what it were to be old, but solace themselves with a perpetual
+youth. Do but observe our grim philosophers that are perpetually beating
+their brains on knotty subjects, and for the most part you'll find them
+grown old before they are scarcely young. And whence is it, but that
+their continual and restless thoughts insensibly prey upon their spirits
+and dry up their radical moisture? Whereas, on the contrary, my fat fools
+are as plump and round as a Westphalian hog, and never sensible of old
+age, unless perhaps, as sometimes it rarely happens, they come to be
+infected with wisdom, so hard a thing it is for a man to be happy in all
+things. And to this purpose is that no small testimony of the proverb,
+that says, "Folly is the only thing that keeps youth at a stay and old
+age afar off;" as it is verified in the Brabanders, of whom there goes
+this common saying, "That age, which is wont to render other men wiser,
+makes them the greater fools." And yet there is scarce any nation of a
+more jocund converse, or that is less sensible of the misery of old age,
+than they are. And to these, as in situation, so for manner of living,
+come nearest my friends the Hollanders. And why should I not call them
+mine, since they are so diligent observers of me that they are commonly
+called by my name?--of which they are so far from being ashamed, they
+rather pride themselves in it. Let the foolish world then be packing and
+seek out Medeas, Circes, Venuses, Auroras, and I know not what other
+fountains of restoring youth. I am sure I am the only person that both
+can, and have, made it good. 'Tis I alone that have that wonderful juice
+with which Memnon's daughter prolonged the youth of her grandfather
+Tithon. I am that Venus by whose favor Phaon became so young again that
+Sappho fell in love with him. Mine are those herbs, if yet there be any
+such, mine those charms, and mine that fountain that not only restores
+departed youth but, which is more desirable, preserves it perpetual. And
+if you all subscribe to this opinion, that nothing is better than youth
+or more execrable than age, I conceive you cannot but see how much you
+are indebted to me, that have retained so great a good and shut out so
+great an evil.
+
+But why do I altogether spend my breath in speaking of mortals? View
+heaven round, and let him that will reproach me with my name if he find
+any one of the gods that were not stinking and contemptible were he not
+made acceptable by my deity. Why is it that Bacchus is always a
+stripling, and bushy-haired? but because he is mad, and drunk, and spends
+his life in drinking, dancing, revels, and May games, not having so much
+as the least society with Pallas. And lastly, he is so far from desiring
+to be accounted wise that he delights to be worshiped with sports and
+gambols; nor is he displeased with the proverb that gave him the surname
+of fool, "A greater fool than Bacchus;" which name of his was changed to
+Morychus, for that sitting before the gates of his temple, the wanton
+country people were wont to bedaub him with new wine and figs. And of
+scoffs, what not, have not the ancient comedies thrown on him? O foolish
+god, say they, and worthy to be born as you were of your father's thigh!
+And yet, who had not rather be your fool and sot, always merry, ever
+young, and making sport for other people, than either Homer's Jupiter
+with his crooked counsels, terrible to everyone; or old Pan with his
+hubbubs; or smutty Vulcan half covered with cinders; or even Pallas
+herself, so dreadful with her Gorgon's head and spear and a countenance
+like bullbeef? Why is Cupid always portrayed like a boy, but because he
+is a very wag and can neither do nor so much as think of anything sober?
+Why Venus ever in her prime, but because of her affinity with me? Witness
+that color of her hair, so resembling my father, from whence she is
+called the golden Venus; and lastly, ever laughing, if you give any
+credit to the poets, or their followers the statuaries. What deity did
+the Romans ever more religiously adore than that of Flora, the foundress
+of all pleasure? Nay, if you should but diligently search the lives of
+the most sour and morose of the gods out of Homer and the rest of the
+poets, you would find them all but so many pieces of Folly. And to what
+purpose should I run over any of the other gods' tricks when you know
+enough of Jupiter's loose loves? When that chaste Diana shall so far
+forget her sex as to be ever hunting and ready to perish for Endymion?
+But I had rather they should hear these things from Momus, from whom
+heretofore they were wont to have their shares, till in one of their
+angry humors they tumbled him, together with Ate, goddess of mischief,
+down headlong to the earth, because his wisdom, forsooth, unseasonably
+disturbed their happiness. Nor since that dares any mortal give him
+harbor, though I must confess there wanted little but that he had been
+received into the courts of princes, had not my companion Flattery
+reigned in chief there, with whom and the other there is no more
+correspondence than between lambs and wolves. From whence it is that the
+gods play the fool with the greater liberty and more content to
+themselves "doing all things carelessly," as says Father Homer, that is
+to say, without anyone to correct them. For what ridiculous stuff is
+there which that stump of the fig tree Priapus does not afford them? What
+tricks and legerdemains with which Mercury does not cloak his thefts?
+What buffoonery that Vulcan is not guilty of, while one with his
+polt-foot, another with his smutched muzzle, another with his
+impertinencies, he makes sport for the rest of the gods? As also that old
+Silenus with his country dances, Polyphemus footing time to his Cyclops
+hammers, the nymphs with their jigs, and satyrs with their antics; while
+Pan makes them all twitter with some coarse ballad, which yet they had
+rather hear than the Muses themselves, and chiefly when they are well
+whittled with nectar. Besides, what should I mention what these gods do
+when they are half drunk? Now by my troth, so foolish that I myself can
+hardly refrain laughter. But in these matters 'twere better we remembered
+Harpocrates, lest some eavesdropping god or other take us whispering that
+which Momus only has the privilege of speaking at length.
+
+And therefore, according to Homer's example, I think it high time to
+leave the gods to themselves, and look down a little on the earth;
+wherein likewise you'll find nothing frolic or fortunate that it owes not
+to me. So provident has that great parent of mankind, Nature, been that
+there should not be anything without its mixture and, as it were,
+seasoning of Folly. For since according to the definition of the Stoics,
+wisdom is nothing else than to be governed by reason, and on the contrary
+Folly, to be given up to the will of our passions, that the life of man
+might not be altogether disconsolate and hard to away with, of how much
+more passion than reason has Jupiter composed us? putting in, as one
+would say, "scarce half an ounce to a pound." Besides, he has confined
+reason to a narrow corner of the brain and left all the rest of the body
+to our passions; has also set up, against this one, two as it were,
+masterless tyrants--anger, that possesses the region of the heart, and
+consequently the very fountain of life, the heart itself; and lust, that
+stretches its empire everywhere. Against which double force how powerful
+reason is let common experience declare, inasmuch as she, which yet is
+all she can do, may call out to us till she be hoarse again and tell us
+the rules of honesty and virtue; while they give up the reins to their
+governor and make a hideous clamor, till at last being wearied, he suffer
+himself to be carried whither they please to hurry him.
+
+But forasmuch as such as are born to the business of the world have some
+little sprinklings of reason more than the rest, yet that they may the
+better manage it, even in this as well as in other things, they call me
+to counsel; and I give them such as is worthy of myself, to wit, that
+they take to them a wife--a silly thing, God wot, and foolish, yet wanton
+and pleasant, by which means the roughness of the masculine temper is
+seasoned and sweetened by her folly. For in that Plato seems to doubt
+under what genus he should put woman, to wit, that of rational creatures
+or brutes, he intended no other in it than to show the apparent folly of
+the sex. For if perhaps any of them goes about to be thought wiser than
+the rest, what else does she do but play the fool twice, as if a man
+should "teach a cow to dance," "a thing quite against the hair." For as
+it doubles the crime if anyone should put a disguise upon Nature, or
+endeavor to bring her to that she will in no wise bear, according to that
+proverb of the Greeks, "An ape is an ape, though clad in scarlet;" so a
+woman is a woman still, that is to say foolish, let her put on whatever
+vizard she please.
+
+But, by the way, I hope that sex is not so foolish as to take offense at
+this, that I myself, being a woman, and Folly too, have attributed folly
+to them. For if they weigh it right, they needs must acknowledge that
+they owe it to folly that they are more fortunate than men. As first
+their beauty, which, and that not without cause, they prefer before
+everything, since by its means they exercise a tyranny even upon tyrants
+themselves; otherwise, whence proceeds that sour look, rough skin, bushy
+beard, and such other things as speak plain old age in a man, but from
+that disease of wisdom? Whereas women's cheeks are ever plump and smooth,
+their voice small, their skin soft, as if they imitated a certain kind of
+perpetual youth. Again, what greater thing do they wish in their whole
+lives than that they may please the man? For to what other purpose are
+all those dresses, washes, baths, slops, perfumes, and those several
+little tricks of setting their faces, painting their eyebrows, and
+smoothing their skins? And now tell me, what higher letters of
+recommendation have they to men than this folly? For what is it they do
+not permit them to do? And to what other purpose than that of pleasure?
+Wherein yet their folly is not the least thing that pleases; which so
+true it is, I think no one will deny, that does but consider with
+himself, what foolish discourse and odd gambols pass between a man and
+his woman, as often as he had a mind to be gamesome? And so I have shown
+you whence the first and chiefest delight of man's life springs.
+
+
+But there are some, you'll say, and those too none of the youngest, that
+have a greater kindness for the pot than the petticoat and place their
+chiefest pleasure in good fellowship. If there can be any great
+entertainment without a woman at it, let others look to it. This I am
+sure, there was never any pleasant which folly gave not the relish to.
+Insomuch that if they find no occasion of laughter, they send for "one
+that may make it," or hire some buffoon flatterer, whose ridiculous
+discourse may put by the gravity of the company. For to what purpose were
+it to clog our stomachs with dainties, junkets, and the like stuff,
+unless our eyes and ears, nay whole mind, were likewise entertained with
+jests, merriments, and laughter? But of these kind of second courses I am
+the only cook; though yet those ordinary practices of our feasts, as
+choosing a king, throwing dice, drinking healths, trolling it round,
+dancing the cushion, and the like, were not invented by the seven wise
+men but myself, and that too for the common pleasure of mankind. The
+nature of all which things is such that the more of folly they have, the
+more they conduce to human life, which, if it were unpleasant, did not
+deserve the name of life; and other than such it could not well be,
+did not these kind of diversions wipe away tediousness, next cousin to
+the other.
+
+But perhaps there are some that neglect this way of pleasure and rest
+satisfied in the enjoyment of their friends, calling friendship the most
+desirable of all things, more necessary than either air, fire, or water;
+so delectable that he that shall take it out of the world had as good put
+out the sun; and, lastly, so commendable, if yet that make anything to
+the matter, that neither the philosophers themselves doubted to reckon it
+among their chiefest good. But what if I show you that I am both the
+beginning and end of this so great good also? Nor shall I go about to
+prove it by fallacies, sorites, dilemmas, or other the like subtleties of
+logicians, but after my blunt way point out the thing as clearly as it
+were with my finger.
+
+And now tell me if to wink, slip over, be blind at, or deceived in the
+vices of our friends, nay, to admire and esteem them for virtues, be not
+at least the next degree to folly? What is it when one kisses his
+mistress' freckle neck, another the wart on her nose? When a father shall
+swear his squint-eyed child is more lovely than Venus? What is this, I
+say, but mere folly? And so, perhaps you'll cry it is; and yet 'tis this
+only that joins friends together and continues them so joined. I speak of
+ordinary men, of whom none are born without their imperfections, and
+happy is he that is pressed with the least: for among wise princes there
+is either no friendship at all, or if there be, 'tis unpleasant and
+reserved, and that too but among a very few 'twere a crime to say none.
+For that the greatest part of mankind are fools, nay there is not anyone
+that dotes not in many things; and friendship, you know, is seldom made
+but among equals. And yet if it should so happen that there were a mutual
+good will between them, it is in no wise firm nor very long lived; that
+is to say, among such as are morose and more circumspect than needs, as
+being eagle-sighted into his friends' faults, but so blear-eyed to their
+own that they take not the least notice of the wallet that hangs behind
+their own shoulders. Since then the nature of man is such that there is
+scarce anyone to be found that is not subject to many errors, add to this
+the great diversity of minds and studies, so many slips, oversights, and
+chances of human life, and how is it possible there should be any true
+friendship between those Argus, so much as one hour, were it not for that
+which the Greeks excellently call _euetheian_? And you may render by
+folly or good nature, choose you whether. But what? Is not the author and
+parent of all our love, Cupid, as blind as a beetle? And as with him all
+colors agree, so from him is it that everyone likes his own sweeter-kin
+best, though never so ugly, and "that an old man dotes on his old wife,
+and a boy on his girl." These things are not only done everywhere but
+laughed at too; yet as ridiculous as they are, they make society
+pleasant, and, as it were, glue it together.
+
+And what has been said of friendship may more reasonably be presumed of
+matrimony, which in truth is no other than an inseparable conjunction of
+life. Good God! What divorces, or what not worse than that, would daily
+happen were not the converse between a man and his wife supported and
+cherished by flattery, apishness, gentleness, ignorance, dissembling,
+certain retainers of mine also! Whoop holiday! how few marriages should
+we have, if the husband should but thoroughly examine how many tricks his
+pretty little mop of modesty has played before she was married! And how
+fewer of them would hold together, did not most of the wife's actions
+escape the husband's knowledge through his neglect or sottishness! And
+for this also you are beholden to me, by whose means it is that the
+husband is pleasant to his wife, the wife to her husband, and the house
+kept in quiet. A man is laughed at, when seeing his wife weeping he licks
+up her tears. But how much happier is it to be thus deceived than by
+being troubled with jealousy not only to torment himself but set all
+things in a hubbub!
+
+In fine, I am so necessary to the making of all society and manner of
+life both delightful and lasting, that neither would the people long
+endure their governors, nor the servant his master, nor the master his
+footman, nor the scholar his tutor, nor one friend another, nor the wife
+her husband, nor the usurer the borrower, nor a soldier his commander,
+nor one companion another, unless all of them had their interchangeable
+failings, one while flattering, other while prudently conniving, and
+generally sweetening one another with some small relish of folly.
+
+And now you'd think I had said all, but you shall hear yet greater
+things. Will he, I pray, love anyone that hates himself? Or ever agree
+with another who is not at peace with himself? Or beget pleasure in
+another that is troublesome to himself? I think no one will say it that
+is not more foolish than Folly. And yet, if you should exclude me,
+there's no man but would be so far from enduring another that he would
+stink in his own nostrils, be nauseated with his own actions, and himself
+become odious to himself; forasmuch as Nature, in too many things rather
+a stepdame than a parent to us, has imprinted that evil in men,
+especially such as have least judgment, that everyone repents him of his
+own condition and admires that of others. Whence it comes to pass that
+all her gifts, elegancy, and graces corrupt and perish. For what benefit
+is beauty, the greatest blessing of heaven, if it be mixed with
+affectation? What youth, if corrupted with the severity of old age?
+Lastly, what is that in the whole business of a man's life he can do with
+any grace to himself or others--for it is not so much a thing of art, as
+the very life of every action, that it be done with a good mien--unless
+this my friend and companion, Self-love, be present with it? Nor does she
+without cause supply me the place of a sister, since her whole endeavors
+are to act my part everywhere. For what is more foolish than for a man to
+study nothing else than how to please himself? To make himself the object
+of his own admiration? And yet, what is there that is either delightful
+or taking, nay rather what not the contrary, that a man does against the
+hair? Take away this salt of life, and the orator may even sit still with
+his action, the musician with all his division will be able to please no
+man, the player be hissed off the stage, the poet and all his Muses
+ridiculous, the painter with his art contemptible, and the physician with
+all his slip-slops go a-begging. Lastly, you will be taken for an ugly
+fellow instead of youthful, and a beast instead of a wise man, a child
+instead of eloquent, and instead of a well-bred man, a clown. So
+necessary a thing it is that everyone flatter himself and commend himself
+to himself before he can be commended by others.
+
+Lastly, since it is the chief point of happiness "that a man is willing
+to be what he is," you have further abridged in this my Self-love, that
+no man is ashamed of his own face, no man of his own wit, no man of his
+own parentage, no man of his own house, no man of his manner of living,
+nor any man of his own country; so that a Highlander has no desire to
+change with an Italian, a Thracian with an Athenian, nor a Scythian for
+the Fortunate Islands. O the singular care of Nature, that in so great a
+variety of things has made all equal! Where she has been sometimes
+sparing of her gifts she has recompensed it with the more of self-love;
+though here, I must confess, I speak foolishly, it being the greatest of
+all other her gifts: to say nothing that no great action was ever
+attempted without my motion, or art brought to perfection without my
+help.
+
+Is not war the very root and matter of all famed enterprises? And yet
+what more foolish than to undertake it for I know what trifles,
+especially when both parties are sure to lose more than they get by the
+bargain? For of those that are slain, not a word of them; and for the
+rest, when both sides are close engaged "and the trumpets make an ugly
+noise," what use of those wise men, I pray, that are so exhausted with
+study that their thin, cold blood has scarce any spirits left? No, it
+must be those blunt, fat fellows, that by how much the more they exceed
+in courage, fall short in understanding. Unless perhaps one had rather
+choose Demosthenes for a soldier, who, following the example of
+Archilochius, threw away his arms and betook him to his heels e'er he had
+scarce seen his enemy; as ill a soldier, as happy an orator.
+
+But counsel, you'll say, is not of least concern in matters of war. In a
+general I grant it; but this thing of warring is not part of philosophy,
+but managed by parasites, panders, thieves, cut-throats, plowmen, sots,
+spendthrifts, and such other dregs of mankind, not philosophers; who how
+unapt they are even for common converse, let Socrates, whom the oracle of
+Apollo, though not so wisely, judged "the wisest of all men living," be
+witness; who stepping up to speak somewhat, I know not what, in public
+was forced to come down again well laughed at for his pains. Though yet
+in this he was not altogether a fool, that he refused the appellation of
+wise, and returning it back to the oracle, delivered his opinion that a
+wise man should abstain from meddling with public business; unless
+perhaps he should have rather admonished us to beware of wisdom if we
+intended to be reckoned among the number of men, there being nothing but
+his wisdom that first accused and afterwards sentenced him to the
+drinking of his poisoned cup. For while, as you find him in Aristophanes,
+philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring how far a flea could
+leap, and admiring that so small a creature as a fly should make so great
+a buzz, he meddled not with anything that concerned common life. But his
+master being in danger of his head, his scholar Plato is at hand, to wit
+that famous patron, that being disturbed with the noise of the people,
+could not go through half his first sentence. What should I speak of
+Theophrastus, who being about to make an oration, became as dumb as if he
+had met a wolf in his way, which yet would have put courage in a man of
+war? Or Isocrates, that was so cowhearted that he dared never attempt it?
+Or Tully, that great founder of the Roman eloquence, that could never
+begin to speak without an odd kind of trembling, like a boy that had got
+the hiccough; which Fabius interprets as an argument of a wise orator and
+one that was sensible of what he was doing; and while he says it, does he
+not plainly confess that wisdom is a great obstacle to the true
+management of business? What would become of them, think you, were they
+to fight it out at blows that are so dead through fear when the contest
+is only with empty words?
+
+And next to these is cried up, forsooth, that goodly sentence of Plato's,
+"Happy is that commonwealth where a philosopher is prince, or whose
+prince is addicted to philosophy." When yet if you consult historians,
+you'll find no princes more pestilent to the commonwealth than where the
+empire has fallen to some smatterer in philosophy or one given to
+letters. To the truth of which I think the Catoes give sufficient credit;
+of whom the one was ever disturbing the peace of the commonwealth with
+his hair-brained accusations; the other, while he too wisely vindicated
+its liberty, quite overthrew it. Add to this the Bruti, Casii, nay Cicero
+himself, that was no less pernicious to the commonwealth of Rome than was
+Demosthenes to that of Athens. Besides M. Antoninus (that I may give you
+one instance that there was once one good emperor; for with much ado I
+can make it out) was become burdensome and hated of his subjects upon no
+other score but that he was so great a philosopher. But admitting him
+good, he did the commonwealth more hurt in leaving behind him such a son
+as he did than ever he did it good by his own government. For these kind
+of men that are so given up to the study of wisdom are generally most
+unfortunate, but chiefly in their children; Nature, it seems, so
+providently ordering it, lest this mischief of wisdom should spread
+further among mankind. For which reason it is manifest why Cicero's son
+was so degenerate, and that wise Socrates' children, as one has well
+observed, were more like their mother than their father, that is to
+say, fools.
+
+However this were to be born with, if only as to public employments they
+were "like a sow upon a pair of organs," were they anything more apt to
+discharge even the common offices of life. Invite a wise man to a feast
+and he'll spoil the company, either with morose silence or troublesome
+disputes. Take him out to dance, and you'll swear "a cow would have done
+it better." Bring him to the theatre, and his very looks are enough to
+spoil all, till like Cato he take an occasion of withdrawing rather than
+put off his supercilious gravity. Let him fall into discourse, and he
+shall make more sudden stops than if he had a wolf before him. Let him
+buy, or sell, or in short go about any of those things without there is
+no living in this world, and you'll say this piece of wisdom were rather
+a stock than a man, of so little use is he to himself, country, or
+friends; and all because he is wholly ignorant of common things and lives
+a course of life quite different from the people; by which means it is
+impossible but that he contract a popular odium, to wit, by reason of the
+great diversity of their life and souls. For what is there at all done
+among men that is not full of folly, and that too from fools and to
+fools? Against which universal practice if any single one shall dare to
+set up his throat, my advice to him is, that following the example of
+Timon, he retire into some desert and there enjoy his wisdom to himself.
+
+But, to return to my design, what power was it that drew those stony,
+oaken, and wild people into cities but flattery? For nothing else is
+signified by Amphion and Orpheus' harp. What was it that, when the common
+people of Rome were like to have destroyed all by their mutiny, reduced
+them to obedience? Was it a philosophical oration? Least. But a
+ridiculous and childish fable of the belly and the rest of the members.
+And as good success had Themistocles in his of the fox and hedgehog. What
+wise man's oration could ever have done so much with the people as
+Sertorius' invention of his white hind? Or his ridiculous emblem of
+pulling off a horse's tail hair by hair? Or as Lycurgus his example of
+his two whelps? To say nothing of Minos and Numa, both which ruled their
+foolish multitudes with fabulous inventions; with which kind of toys that
+great and powerful beast, the people, are led anyway. Again what city
+ever received Plato's or Aristotle's laws, or Socrates' precepts? But, on
+the contrary, what made the Decii devote themselves to the infernal gods,
+or Q. Curtius to leap into the gulf, but an empty vainglory, a most
+bewitching siren? And yet 'tis strange it should be so condemned by those
+wise philosophers. For what is more foolish, say they, than for a
+suppliant suitor to flatter the people, to buy their favor with gifts, to
+court the applauses of so many fools, to please himself with their
+acclamations, to be carried on the people's shoulders as in triumph, and
+have a brazen statue in the marketplace? Add to this the adoption of
+names and surnames, those divine honors given to a man of no reputation,
+and the deification of the most wicked tyrants with public ceremonies;
+most foolish things, and such as one Democritus is too little to laugh
+at. Who denies it? And yet from this root sprang all the great acts of
+the heroes which the pens of so many eloquent men have extolled to the
+skies. In a word, this folly is that that laid the foundation of cities;
+and by it, empire, authority, religion, policy, and public actions are
+preserved; neither is there anything in human life that is not a kind of
+pastime of folly.
+
+But to speak of arts, what set men's wits on work to invent and transmit
+to posterity so many famous, as they conceive, pieces of learning but the
+thirst of glory? With so much loss of sleep, such pains and travail,
+have the most foolish of men thought to purchase themselves a kind of
+I know not what fame, than which nothing can be more vain. And yet
+notwithstanding, you owe this advantage to folly, and which is the
+most delectable of all other, that you reap the benefit of other
+men's madness.
+
+And now, having vindicated to myself the praise of fortitude and
+industry, what think you if I do the same by that of prudence? But some
+will say, you may as well join fire and water. It may be so. But yet I
+doubt not but to succeed even in this also, if, as you have done
+hitherto, you will but favor me with your attention. And first, if
+prudence depends upon experience, to whom is the honor of that name more
+proper? To the wise man, who partly out of modesty and partly distrust of
+himself, attempts nothing; or the fool, whom neither modesty which he
+never had, nor danger which he never considers, can discourage from
+anything? The wise man has recourse to the books of the ancients, and
+from thence picks nothing but subtleties of words. The fool, in
+undertaking and venturing on the business of the world, gathers, if I
+mistake not, the true prudence, such as Homer though blind may be said to
+have seen when he said, "The burnt child dreads the fire." For there are
+two main obstacles to the knowledge of things, modesty that casts a mist
+before the understanding, and fear that, having fancied a danger,
+dissuades us from the attempt. But from these folly sufficiently frees
+us, and few there are that rightly understand of what great advantage it
+is to blush at nothing and attempt everything.
+
+But if you had rather take prudence for that that consists in the
+judgment of things, hear me, I beseech you, how far they are from it that
+yet crack of the name. For first 'tis evident that all human things, like
+Alcibiades' Sileni or rural gods, carry a double face, but not the least
+alike; so that what at first sight seems to be death, if you view it
+narrowly may prove to be life; and so the contrary. What appears
+beautiful may chance to be deformed; what wealthy, a very beggar; what
+infamous, praiseworthy; what learned, a dunce; what lusty, feeble; what
+jocund, sad; what noble, base; what lucky, unfortunate; what friendly, an
+enemy; and what healthful, noisome. In short, view the inside of these
+Sileni, and you'll find them quite other than what they appear; which, if
+perhaps it shall not seem so philosophically spoken, I'll make it plain
+to you "after my blunt way." Who would not conceive a prince a great lord
+and abundant in everything? But yet being so ill-furnished with the gifts
+of the mind, and ever thinking he shall never have enough, he's the
+poorest of all men. And then for his mind so given up to vice, 'tis a
+shame how it enslaves him. I might in like manner philosophize of the
+rest; but let this one, for example's sake, be enough.
+
+Yet why this? will someone say. Have patience, and I'll show you what I
+drive at. If anyone seeing a player acting his part on a stage should go
+about to strip him of his disguise and show him to the people in his true
+native form, would he not, think you, not only spoil the whole design of
+the play, but deserve himself to be pelted off with stones as a
+phantastical fool and one out of his wits? But nothing is more common
+with them than such changes; the same person one while impersonating a
+woman, and another while a man; now a youngster, and by and by a grim
+seignior; now a king, and presently a peasant; now a god, and in a trice
+again an ordinary fellow. But to discover this were to spoil all, it
+being the only thing that entertains the eyes of the spectators. And what
+is all this life but a kind of comedy, wherein men walk up and down in
+one another's disguises and act their respective parts, till the
+property-man brings them back to the attiring house. And yet he often
+orders a different dress, and makes him that came but just now off in the
+robes of a king put on the rags of a beggar. Thus are all things
+represented by counterfeit, and yet without this there was no living.
+
+And here if any wise man, as it were dropped from heaven, should start up
+and cry, this great thing whom the world looks upon for a god and I know
+not what is not so much as a man, for that like a beast he is led by his
+passions, but the worst of slaves, inasmuch as he gives himself up
+willingly to so many and such detestable masters. Again if he should bid
+a man that were bewailing the death of his father to laugh, for that he
+now began to live by having got an estate, without which life is but a
+kind of death; or call another that were boasting of his family ill
+begotten or base, because he is so far removed from virtue that is the
+only fountain of nobility; and so of the rest: what else would he get by
+it but be thought himself mad and frantic? For as nothing is more foolish
+than preposterous wisdom, so nothing is more unadvised than a forward
+unseasonable prudence. And such is his that does not comply with the
+present time "and order himself as the market goes," but forgetting that
+law of feasts, "either drink or begone," undertakes to disprove a common
+received opinion. Whereas on the contrary 'tis the part of a truly
+prudent man not to be wise beyond his condition, but either to take no
+notice of what the world does, or run with it for company. But this is
+foolish, you'll say; nor shall I deny it, provided always you be so civil
+on the other side as to confess that this is to act a part in that world.
+
+But, O you gods, "shall I speak or hold my tongue?" But why should I be
+silent in a thing that is more true than truth itself? However it might
+not be amiss perhaps in so great an affair to call forth the Muses from
+Helicon, since the poets so often invoke them upon every foolish
+occasion. Be present then awhile, and assist me, you daughters of
+Jupiter, while I make it out that there is no way to that so much famed
+wisdom, nor access to that fortress as they call it of happiness, but
+under the banner of Folly. And first 'tis agreed of all hands that our
+passions belong to Folly; inasmuch as we judge a wise man from a fool by
+this, that the one is ordered by them, the other by reason; and therefore
+the Stoics remove from a wise man all disturbances of mind as so many
+diseases. But these passions do not only the office of a tutor to such as
+are making towards the port of wisdom, but are in every exercise of
+virtue as it were spurs and incentives, nay and encouragers to well
+doing: which though that great Stoic Seneca most strongly denies, and
+takes from a wise man all affections whatever, yet in doing that he
+leaves him not so much as a man but rather a new kind of god that was
+never yet nor ever like to be. Nay, to speak plainer, he sets up a stony
+semblance of a man, void of all sense and common feeling of humanity. And
+much good to them with this wise man of theirs; let them enjoy him to
+themselves, love him without competitors, and live with him in Plato's
+commonwealth, the country of ideas, or Tantalus' orchards. For who would
+not shun and startle at such a man, as at some unnatural accident or
+spirit? A man dead to all sense of nature and common affections, and no
+more moved with love or pity than if he were a flint or rock; whose
+censure nothing escapes; that commits no errors himself, but has a lynx's
+eyes upon others; measures everything by an exact line, and forgives
+nothing; pleases himself with himself only; the only rich, the only wise,
+the only free man, and only king; in brief, the only man that is
+everything, but in his own single judgment only; that cares not for the
+friendship of any man, being himself a friend to no man; makes no doubt
+to make the gods stoop to him, and condemns and laughs at the whole
+actions of our life? And yet such a beast is this their perfect wise man.
+But tell me pray, if the thing were to be carried by most voices, what
+city would choose him for its governor, or what army desire him for their
+general? What woman would have such a husband, what goodfellow such a
+guest, or what servant would either wish or endure such a master? Nay,
+who had not rather have one of the middle sort of fools, who, being a
+fool himself, may the better know how to command or obey fools; and who
+though he please his like, 'tis yet the greater number; one that is kind
+to his wife, merry among his friends, a boon companion, and easy to be
+lived with; and lastly one that thinks nothing of humanity should be a
+stranger to him? But I am weary of this wise man, and therefore I'll
+proceed to some other advantages.
+
+Go to then. Suppose a man in some lofty high tower, and that he could
+look round him, as the poets say Jupiter was now and then wont. To how
+many misfortunes would he find the life of man subject? How miserable, to
+say no worse, our birth, how difficult our education; to how many wrongs
+our childhood exposed, to what pains our youth; how unsupportable our old
+age, and grievous our unavoidable death? As also what troops of diseases
+beset us, how many casualties hang over our heads, how many troubles
+invade us, and how little there is that is not steeped in gall? To say
+nothing of those evils one man brings upon another, as poverty,
+imprisonment, infamy, dishonesty, racks, snares, treachery, reproaches,
+actions, deceits--but I'm got into as endless a work as numbering the
+sands--for what offenses mankind have deserved these things, or what
+angry god compelled them to be born into such miseries is not my present
+business. Yet he that shall diligently examine it with himself, would he
+not, think you, approve the example of the Milesian virgins and kill
+himself? But who are they that for no other reason but that they were
+weary of life have hastened their own fate? Were they not the next
+neighbors to wisdom? among whom, to say nothing of Diogenes, Xenocrates,
+Cato, Cassius, Brutus, that wise man Chiron, being offered immortality,
+chose rather to die than be troubled with the same thing always.
+
+And now I think you see what would become of the world if all men should
+be wise; to wit it were necessary we got another kind of clay and some
+better potter. But I, partly through ignorance, partly unadvisedness, and
+sometimes through forgetfulness of evil, do now and then so sprinkle
+pleasure with the hopes of good and sweeten men up in their greatest
+misfortunes that they are not willing to leave this life, even then when
+according to the account of the destinies this life has left them; and by
+how much the less reason they have to live, by so much the more they
+desire it; so far are they from being sensible of the least wearisomeness
+of life. Of my gift it is, that you have so many old Nestors everywhere
+that have scarce left them so much as the shape of a man; stutterers,
+dotards, toothless, gray-haired, bald; or rather, to use the words of
+Aristophanes, "Nasty, crumpled, miserable, shriveled, bald, toothless,
+and wanting their baubles," yet so delighted with life and to be thought
+young that one dyes his gray hairs; another covers his baldness with a
+periwig; another gets a set of new teeth; another falls desperately in
+love with a young wench and keeps more flickering about her than a young
+man would have been ashamed of. For to see such an old crooked piece with
+one foot in the grave to marry a plump young wench, and that too without
+a portion, is so common that men almost expect to be commended for it.
+But the best sport of all is to see our old women, even dead with age,
+and such skeletons one would think they had stolen out of their graves,
+and ever mumbling in their mouths, "Life is sweet;" and as old as they
+are, still caterwauling, daily plastering their face, scarce ever from
+the glass, gossiping, dancing, and writing love letters. These things are
+laughed at as foolish, as indeed they are; yet they please themselves,
+live merrily, swim in pleasure, and in a word are happy, by my courtesy.
+But I would have them to whom these things seem ridiculous to consider
+with themselves whether it be not better to live so pleasant a life in
+such kind of follies, than, as the proverb goes, "to take a halter and
+hang themselves." Besides though these things may be subject to censure,
+it concerns not my fools in the least, inasmuch as they take no notice of
+it; or if they do, they easily neglect it. If a stone fall upon a man's
+head, that's evil indeed; but dishonesty, infamy, villainy, ill reports
+carry no more hurt in them than a man is sensible of; and if a man have
+no sense of them, they are no longer evils. What are you the worse if the
+people hiss at you, so you applaud yourself? And that a man be able to do
+so, he must owe it to folly.
+
+But methinks I hear the philosophers opposing it and saying 'tis a
+miserable thing for a man to be foolish, to err, mistake, and know
+nothing truly. Nay rather, this is to be a man. And why they should call
+it miserable, I see no reason; forasmuch as we are so born, so bred, so
+instructed, nay such is the common condition of us all. And nothing can
+be called miserable that suits with its kind, unless perhaps you'll think
+a man such because he can neither fly with birds, nor walk on all four
+with beasts, and is not armed with horns as a bull. For by the same
+reason he would call the warlike horse unfortunate, because he understood
+not grammar, nor ate cheese-cakes; and the bull miserable, because he'd
+make so ill a wrestler. And therefore, as a horse that has no skill in
+grammar is not miserable, no more is man in this respect, for that they
+agree with his nature. But again, the virtuosi may say that there was
+particularly added to man the knowledge of sciences, by whose help he
+might recompense himself in understanding for what nature cut him short
+in other things. As if this had the least face of truth, that Nature that
+was so solicitously watchful in the production of gnats, herbs, and
+flowers should have so slept when she made man, that he should have need
+to be helped by sciences, which that old devil Theuth, the evil genius of
+mankind, first invented for his destruction, and are so little conducive
+to happiness that they rather obstruct it; to which purpose they are
+properly said to be first found out, as that wise king in Plato argues
+touching the invention of letters.
+
+Sciences therefore crept into the world with other the pests of mankind,
+from the same head from whence all other mischiefs spring; we'll suppose
+it devils, for so the name imports when you call them demons, that is to
+say, knowing. For that simple people of the golden age, being wholly
+ignorant of everything called learning, lived only by the guidance and
+dictates of nature; for what use of grammar, where every man spoke the
+same language and had no further design than to understand one another?
+What use of logic, where there was no bickering about the double-meaning
+words? What need of rhetoric, where there were no lawsuits? Or to what
+purpose laws, where there were no ill manners? from which without doubt
+good laws first came. Besides, they were more religious than with an
+impious curiosity to dive into the secrets of nature, the dimension of
+stars, the motions, effects, and hidden causes of things; as believing it
+a crime for any man to attempt to be wise beyond his condition. And as to
+the inquiry of what was beyond heaven, that madness never came into their
+heads. But the purity of the golden age declining by degrees, first, as I
+said before, arts were invented by the evil genii; and yet but few, and
+those too received by fewer. After that the Chaldean superstition and
+Greek newfangledness, that had little to do, added I know not how many
+more; mere torments of wit, and that so great that even grammar alone is
+work enough for any man for his whole life.
+
+Though yet among these sciences those only are in esteem that come
+nearest to common sense, that is to say, folly. Divines are half starved,
+naturalists out of heart, astrologers laughed at, and logicians slighted;
+only the physician is worth all the rest. And among them too, the more
+unlearned, impudent, or unadvised he is, the more he is esteemed, even
+among princes. For physic, especially as it is now professed by most men,
+is nothing but a branch of flattery, no less than rhetoric. Next them,
+the second place is given to our law-drivers, if not the first, whose
+profession, though I say it myself, most men laugh at as the ass of
+philosophy; yet there's scarce any business, either so great or so small,
+but is managed by these asses. These purchase their great lordships,
+while in the meantime the divine, having run through the whole body of
+divinity, sits gnawing a radish and is in continual warfare with lice and
+fleas. As therefore those arts are best that have the nearest affinity
+with folly, so are they most happy of all others that have least commerce
+with sciences and follow the guidance of Nature, who is in no wise
+imperfect, unless perhaps we endeavor to leap over those bounds she has
+appointed to us. Nature hates all false coloring and is ever best where
+she is least adulterated with art.
+
+Go to then, don't you find among the several kinds of living creatures
+that they thrive best that understand no more than what Nature taught
+them? What is more prosperous or wonderful than the bee? And though they
+have not the same judgment of sense as other bodies have, yet wherein has
+architecture gone beyond their building of houses? What philosopher ever
+founded the like republic? Whereas the horse, that comes so near man in
+understanding and is therefore so familiar with him, is also partaker of
+his misery. For while he thinks it a shame to lose the race, it often
+happens that he cracks his wind; and in the battle, while he contends for
+victory, he's cut down himself, and, together with his rider "lies biting
+the earth;" not to mention those strong bits, sharp spurs, close stables,
+arms, blows, rider, and briefly, all that slavery he willingly submits
+to, while, imitating those men of valor, he so eagerly strives to be
+revenged of the enemy. Than which how much more were the life of flies or
+birds to be wished for, who living by the instinct of nature, look no
+further than the present, if yet man would but let them alone in it. And
+if at anytime they chance to be taken, and being shut up in cages
+endeavor to imitate our speaking, 'tis strange how they degenerate from
+their native gaiety. So much better in every respect are the works of
+nature than the adulteries of art.
+
+In like manner I can never sufficiently praise that Pythagoras in a
+dunghill cock, who being but one had been yet everything, a philosopher,
+a man, a woman, a king, a private man, a fish, a horse, a frog, and, I
+believe too, a sponge; and at last concluded that no creature was more
+miserable than man, for that all other creatures are content with those
+bounds that nature set them, only man endeavors to exceed them. And
+again, among men he gives the precedency not to the learned or the great,
+but the fool. Nor had that Gryllus less wit than Ulysses with his many
+counsels, who chose rather to lie grunting in a hog sty than be exposed
+with the other to so many hazards. Nor does Homer, that father of
+trifles, dissent from me; who not only called all men "wretched and full
+of calamity," but often his great pattern of wisdom, Ulysses,
+"miserable;" Paris, Ajax, and Achilles nowhere. And why, I pray but that,
+like a cunning fellow and one that was his craft's master, he did nothing
+without the advice of Pallas? In a word he was too wise, and by that
+means ran wide of nature. As therefore among men they are least happy
+that study wisdom, as being in this twice fools, that when they are born
+men, they should yet so far forget their condition as to affect the life
+of gods; and after the example of the giants, with their philosophical
+gimcracks make a war upon nature: so they on the other side seem as
+little miserable as is possible who come nearest to beasts and never
+attempt anything beyond man. Go to then, let's try how demonstrable this
+is; not by enthymemes or the imperfect syllogisms of the Stoics, but by
+plain, downright, and ordinary examples.
+
+And now, by the immortal gods! I think nothing more happy than that
+generation of men we commonly call fools, idiots, lack-wits, and dolts;
+splendid titles too, as I conceive them. I'll tell you a thing, which at
+first perhaps may seem foolish and absurd, yet nothing more true. And
+first they are not afraid of death--no small evil, by Jupiter! They are
+not tormented with the conscience of evil acts, not terrified with the
+fables of ghosts, nor frightened with spirits and goblins. They are not
+distracted with the fear of evils to come nor the hopes of future good.
+In short, they are not disturbed with those thousand of cares to which
+this life is subject. They are neither modest, nor fearful, nor
+ambitious, nor envious, nor love they any man. And lastly, if they should
+come nearer even to the very ignorance of brutes, they could not sin, for
+so hold the divines. And now tell me, you wise fool, with how many
+troublesome cares your mind is continually perplexed; heap together all
+the discommodities of your life, and then you'll be sensible from how
+many evils I have delivered my fools. Add to this that they are not only
+merry, play, sing, and laugh themselves, but make mirth wherever they
+come, a special privilege it seems the gods have given them to refresh
+the pensiveness of life. Whence it is that whereas the world is so
+differently affected one towards another, that all men indifferently
+admit them as their companions, desire, feed, cherish, embrace them, take
+their parts upon all occasions, and permit them without offense to do or
+say what they like. And so little does everything desire to hurt them,
+that even the very beasts, by a kind of natural instinct of their
+innocence no doubt, pass by their injuries. For of them it may be truly
+said that they are consecrate to the gods, and therefore and not without
+cause do men have them in such esteem. Whence is it else that they are in
+so great request with princes that they can neither eat nor drink, go
+anywhere, or be an hour without them? Nay, and in some degree they prefer
+these fools before their crabbish wise men, whom yet they keep about them
+for state's sake. Nor do I conceive the reason so difficult, or that it
+should seem strange why they are preferred before the others, for that
+these wise men speak to princes about nothing but grave, serious matters,
+and trusting to their own parts and learning do not fear sometimes "to
+grate their tender ears with smart truths;" but fools fit them with that
+they most delight in, as jests, laughter, abuses of other men, wanton
+pastimes, and the like.
+
+Again, take notice of this no contemptible blessing which Nature has
+given fools, that they are the only plain, honest men and such as speak
+truth. And what is more commendable than truth? For though that proverb
+of Alcibiades in Plato attributes truth to drunkards and children, yet
+the praise of it is particularly mine, even from the testimony of
+Euripides, among whose other things there is extant that his honorable
+saying concerning us, "A fool speaks foolish things." For whatever a fool
+has in his heart, he both shows it in his looks and expresses it in his
+discourse; while the wise men's are those two tongues which the same
+Euripides mentions, whereof the one speaks truth, the other what they
+judge most seasonable for the occasion. These are they "that turn black
+into white," blow hot and cold with the same breath, and carry a far
+different meaning in their breast from what they feign with their tongue.
+Yet in the midst of all their prosperity, princes in this respect seem to
+me most unfortunate, because, having no one to tell them truth, they are
+forced to receive flatterers for friends.
+
+But, someone may say, the ears of princes are strangers to truth, and for
+this reason they avoid those wise men, because they fear lest someone
+more frank than the rest should dare to speak to them things rather true
+than pleasant; for so the matter is, that they don't much care for truth.
+And yet this is found by experience among my fools, that not only truths
+but even open reproaches are heard with pleasure; so that the same thing
+which, if it came from a wise man's mouth might prove a capital crime,
+spoken by a fool is received with delight. For truth carries with it a
+certain peculiar power of pleasing, if no accident fall in to give
+occasion of offense; which faculty the gods have given only to fools. And
+for the same reasons is it that women are so earnestly delighted with
+this kind of men, as being more propense by nature to pleasure and toys.
+And whatsoever they may happen to do with them, although sometimes it be
+of the most serious, yet they turn it to jest and laughter, as that sex
+was ever quick-witted, especially to color their own faults.
+
+But to return to the happiness of fools, who when they have passed over
+this life with a great deal of pleasantness and without so much as the
+least fear or sense of death, they go straight forth into the Elysian
+field, to recreate their pious and careless souls with such sports as
+they used here. Let's proceed then, and compare the condition of any of
+your wise men with that of this fool. Fancy to me now some example of
+wisdom you'd set up against him; one that had spent his childhood and
+youth in learning the sciences and lost the sweetest part of his life in
+watchings, cares, studies, and for the remaining part of it never so much
+as tasted the least of pleasure; ever sparing, poor, sad, sour, unjust,
+and rigorous to himself, and troublesome and hateful to others; broken
+with paleness, leanness, crassness, sore eyes, and an old age and death
+contracted before their time (though yet, what matter is it, when he die
+that never lived?); and such is the picture of this great wise man.
+
+And here again do those frogs of the Stoics croak at me and say that
+nothing is more miserable than madness. But folly is the next degree, if
+not the very thing. For what else is madness than for a man to be out of
+his wits? But to let them see how they are clean out of the way, with the
+Muses' good favor we'll take this syllogism in pieces. Subtly argued, I
+must confess, but as Socrates in Plato teaches us how by splitting one
+Venus and one Cupid to make two of either, in like manner should those
+logicians have done and distinguished madness from madness, if at least
+they would be thought to be well in their wits themselves. For all
+madness is not miserable, or Horace had never called his poetical fury a
+beloved madness; nor Plato placed the raptures of poets, prophets, and
+lovers among the chiefest blessings of this life; nor that sibyl in
+Virgil called Aeneas' travels mad labors. But there are two sorts of
+madness, the one that which the revengeful Furies send privily from hell,
+as often as they let loose their snakes and put into men's breasts either
+the desire of war, or an insatiate thirst after gold, or some dishonest
+love, or parricide, or incest, or sacrilege, or the like plagues, or when
+they terrify some guilty soul with the conscience of his crimes; the
+other, but nothing like this, that which comes from me and is of all
+other things the most desirable; which happens as often as some pleasing
+dotage not only clears the mind of its troublesome cares but renders it
+more jocund. And this was that which, as a special blessing of the gods,
+Cicero, writing to his friend Atticus, wished to himself, that he might
+be the less sensible of those miseries that then hung over the
+commonwealth.
+
+Nor was that Grecian in Horace much wide of it, who was so far made that
+he would sit by himself whole days in the theatre laughing and clapping
+his hands, as if he had seen some tragedy acting, whereas in truth there
+was nothing presented; yet in other things a man well enough, pleasant
+among his friends, kind to his wife, and so good a master to his servants
+that if they had broken the seal of his bottle, he would not have run mad
+for it. But at last, when by the care of his friends and physic he was
+freed from his distemper and become his own man again, he thus
+expostulates with them, "Now, by Pollux, my friends, you have rather
+killed than preserved me in thus forcing me from my pleasure." By which
+you see he liked it so well that he lost it against his will. And trust
+me, I think they were the madder of the two, and had the greater need of
+hellebore, that should offer to look upon so pleasant a madness as an
+evil to be removed by physic; though yet I have not determined whether
+every distemper of the sense or understanding be to be called madness.
+
+For neither he that having weak eyes should take a mule for an ass, nor
+he that should admire an insipid poem as excellent would be presently
+thought mad; but he that not only errs in his senses but is deceived also
+in his judgment, and that too more than ordinary and upon all occasions--
+he, I must confess, would be thought to come very near to it. As if
+anyone hearing an ass bray should take it for excellent music, or a
+beggar conceive himself a king. And yet this kind of madness, if, as it
+commonly happens, it turn to pleasure, it brings a great delight not only
+to them that are possessed with it but to those also that behold it,
+though perhaps they may not be altogether so mad as the other, for the
+species of this madness is much larger than the people take it to be. For
+one mad man laughs at another, and beget themselves a mutual pleasure.
+Nor does it seldom happen that he that is the more mad, laughs at him
+that is less mad. And in this every man is the more happy in how many
+respects the more he is mad; and if I were judge in the case, he should
+be ranged in that class of folly that is peculiarly mine, which in truth
+is so large and universal that I scarce know anyone in all mankind that
+is wise at all hours, or has not some tang or other of madness.
+
+And to this class do they appertain that slight everything in comparison
+of hunting and protest they take an unimaginable pleasure to hear the
+yell of the horns and the yelps of the hounds, and I believe could pick
+somewhat extraordinary out of their very excrement. And then what
+pleasure they take to see a buck or the like unlaced? Let ordinary
+fellows cut up an ox or a wether, 'twere a crime to have this done by
+anything less than a gentleman! who with his hat off, on his bare knees,
+and a couteau for that purpose (for every sword or knife is not
+allowable), with a curious superstition and certain postures, lays open
+the several parts in their respective order; while they that hem him in
+admire it with silence, as some new religious ceremony, though perhaps
+they have seen it a hundred times before. And if any of them chance to
+get the least piece of it, he presently thinks himself no small
+gentleman. In all which they drive at nothing more than to become beasts
+themselves, while yet they imagine they live the life of princes.
+
+And next these may be reckoned those that have such an itch of building;
+one while changing rounds into squares, and presently again squares into
+rounds, never knowing either measure or end, till at last, reduced to the
+utmost poverty, there remains not to them so much as a place where they
+may lay their head, or wherewith to fill their bellies. And why all this?
+but that they may pass over a few years in feeding their foolish fancies.
+
+And, in my opinion, next these may be reckoned such as with their new
+inventions and occult arts undertake to change the forms of things and
+hunt all about after a certain fifth essence; men so bewitched with this
+present hope that it never repents them of their pains or expense, but
+are ever contriving how they may cheat themselves, till, having spent
+all, there is not enough left them to provide another furnace. And yet
+they have not done dreaming these their pleasant dreams but encourage
+others, as much as in them lies, to the same happiness. And at last, when
+they are quite lost in all their expectations, they cheer up themselves
+with this sentence, "In great things the very attempt is enough," and
+then complain of the shortness of man's life that is not sufficient for
+so great an understanding.
+
+And then for gamesters, I am a little doubtful whether they are to be
+admitted into our college; and yet 'tis a foolish and ridiculous sight to
+see some addicted so to it that they can no sooner hear the rattling of
+the dice but their heart leaps and dances again. And then when time after
+time they are so far drawn on with the hopes of winning that they have
+made shipwreck of all, and having split their ship on that rock of dice,
+no less terrible than the bishop and his clerks, scarce got alive to
+shore, they choose rather to cheat any man of their just debts than not
+pay the money they lost, lest otherwise, forsooth, they be thought no men
+of their words. Again what is it, I pray, to see old fellows and half
+blind to play with spectacles? Nay, and when a justly deserved gout has
+knotted their knuckles, to hire a caster, or one that may put the dice in
+the box for them? A pleasant thing, I must confess, did it not for the
+most part end in quarrels, and therefore belongs rather to the Furies
+than me.
+
+But there is no doubt but that that kind of men are wholly ours who love
+to hear or tell feigned miracles and strange lies and are never weary of
+any tale, though never so long, so it be of ghosts, spirits, goblins,
+devils, or the like; which the further they are from truth, the more
+readily they are believed and the more do they tickle their itching ears.
+And these serve not only to pass away time but bring profit, especially
+to mass priests and pardoners. And next to these are they that have
+gotten a foolish but pleasant persuasion that if they can but see a
+wooden or painted Polypheme Christopher, they shall not die that day; or
+do but salute a carved Barbara, in the usual set form, that he shall
+return safe from battle; or make his application to Erasmus on certain
+days with some small wax candles and proper prayers, that he shall
+quickly be rich. Nay, they have gotten a Hercules, another Hippolytus,
+and a St. George, whose horse most religiously set out with trappings and
+bosses there wants little but they worship; however, they endeavor to
+make him their friend by some present or other, and to swear by his
+master's brazen helmet is an oath for a prince. Or what should I say of
+them that hug themselves with their counterfeit pardons; that have
+measured purgatory by an hourglass, and can without the least mistake
+demonstrate its ages, years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds,
+as it were in a mathematical table? Or what of those who, having
+confidence in certain magical charms and short prayers invented by some
+pious imposter, either for his soul's health or profit's sake, promise to
+themselves everything: wealth, honor, pleasure, plenty, good health, long
+life, lively old age, and the next place to Christ in the other world,
+which yet they desire may not happen too soon, that is to say before the
+pleasures of this life have left them?
+
+And now suppose some merchant, soldier, or judge, out of so many rapines,
+parts with some small piece of money. He straight conceives all that sink
+of his whole life quite cleansed; so many perjuries, so many lusts, so
+many debaucheries, so many contentions, so many murders, so many deceits,
+so many breaches of trusts, so many treacheries bought off, as it were by
+compact; and so bought off that they may begin upon a new score. But what
+is more foolish than those, or rather more happy, who daily reciting
+those seven verses of the Psalms promise to themselves more than the top
+of felicity? Which magical verses some devil or other, a merry one
+without doubt but more a blab of his tongue than crafty, is believed to
+have discovered to St. Bernard, but not without a trick. And these are so
+foolish that I am half ashamed of them myself, and yet they are approved,
+and that not only by the common people but even the professors of
+religion. And what, are not they also almost the same where several
+countries avouch to themselves their peculiar saint, and as everyone of
+them has his particular gift, so also his particular form of worship? As,
+one is good for the toothache; another for groaning women; a third, for
+stolen goods; a fourth, for making a voyage prosperous; and a fifth, to
+cure sheep of the rot; and so of the rest, for it would be too tedious to
+run over all. And some there are that are good for more things than one;
+but chiefly, the Virgin Mother, to whom the common people do in a manner
+attribute more than to the Son.
+
+Yet what do they beg of these saints but what belongs to folly? To
+examine it a little. Among all those offerings which are so frequently
+hung up in churches, nay up to the very roof of some of them, did you
+ever see the least acknowledgment from anyone that had left his folly, or
+grown a hair's breadth the wiser? One escapes a shipwreck, and he gets
+safe to shore. Another, run through in a duel, recovers. Another, while
+the rest were fighting, ran out of the field, no less luckily than
+valiantly. Another, condemned to be hanged, by the favor of some saint or
+other, a friend to thieves, got off himself by impeaching his fellows.
+Another escaped by breaking prison. Another recovered from his fever in
+spite of his physician. Another's poison turning to a looseness proved
+his remedy rather than death; and that to his wife's no small sorrow, in
+that she lost both her labor and her charge. Another's cart broke, and he
+saved his horses. Another preserved from the fall of a house. All these
+hang up their tablets, but no one gives thanks for his recovery from
+folly; so sweet a thing it is not to be wise, that on the contrary men
+rather pray against anything than folly.
+
+But why do I launch out into this ocean of superstitions? Had I a hundred
+tongues, as many mouths, and a voice never so strong, yet were I not able
+to run over the several sorts of fools or all the names of folly, so
+thick do they swarm everywhere. And yet your priests make no scruple to
+receive and cherish them as proper instruments of profit; whereas if some
+scurvy wise fellow should step up and speak things as they are, as, to
+live well is the way to die well; the best way to get quit of sin is to
+add to the money you give the hatred of sin, tears, watchings, prayers,
+fastings, and amendment of life; such or such a saint will favor you, if
+you imitate his life--these, I say, and the like--should this wise man
+chat to the people, from what happiness into how great troubles would he
+draw them?
+
+Of this college also are they who in their lifetime appoint with what
+solemnity they'll be buried, and particularly set down how many torches,
+how many mourners, how many singers, how many almsmen they will have at
+it; as if any sense of it could come to them, or that it were a shame to
+them that their corpse were not honorably interred; so curious are they
+herein, as if, like the aediles of old, these were to present some shows
+or banquet to the people.
+
+And though I am in haste, yet I cannot yet pass by them who, though they
+differ nothing from the meanest cobbler, yet 'tis scarcely credible how
+they flatter themselves with the empty title of nobility. One derives his
+pedigree from Aeneas, another from Brutus, a third from the star by the
+tail of Ursa Major. They show you on every side the statues and pictures
+of their ancestors; run over their great-grandfathers and the
+great-great-grandfathers of both lines, and the ancient matches of their
+families, when themselves yet are but once removed from a statue, if not
+worse than those trifles they boast of. And yet by means of this pleasant
+self-love they live a happy life. Nor are they less fools who admire
+these beasts as if they were gods.
+
+But what do I speak of any one or the other particular kind of men, as if
+this self-love had not the same effect everywhere and rendered most men
+superabundantly happy? As when a fellow, more deformed than a baboon,
+shall believe himself handsomer than Homer's Nereus. Another, as soon as
+he can draw two or three lines with a compass, presently thinks himself a
+Euclid. A third, that understands music no more than my horse, and for
+his voice as hoarse as a dunghill cock, shall yet conceive himself
+another Hermogenes. But of all madness that's the most pleasant when a
+man, seeing another any way excellent in what he pretends to himself,
+makes his boasts of it as confidently as if it were his own. And such was
+that rich fellow in Seneca, who whenever he told a story had his servants
+at his elbow to prompt him the names; and to that height had they
+flattered him that he did not question but he might venture a rubber at
+cuffs, a man otherwise so weak he could scarce stand, only presuming on
+this, that he had a company of sturdy servants about him.
+
+Or to what purpose is it I should mind you of our professors of arts?
+Forasmuch as this self-love is so natural to them all that they had
+rather part with their father's land than their foolish opinions; but
+chiefly players, fiddlers, orators, and poets, of which the more ignorant
+each of them is, the more insolently he pleases himself, that is to say
+vaunts and spreads out his plumes. And like lips find like lettuce; nay,
+the more foolish anything is, the more 'tis admired, the greater number
+being ever tickled at the worst things, because, as I said before, most
+men are so subject to folly. And therefore if the more foolish a man is,
+the more he pleases himself and is admired by others, to what purpose
+should he beat his brains about true knowledge, which first will cost him
+dear, and next render him the more troublesome and less confident, and
+lastly, please only a few?
+
+And now I consider it, Nature has planted, not only in particular men but
+even in every nation, and scarce any city is there without it, a kind of
+common self-love. And hence is it that the English, besides other things,
+particularly challenge to themselves beauty, music, and feasting. The
+Scots are proud of their nobility, alliance to the crown, and logical
+subtleties. The French think themselves the only well-bred men. The
+Parisians, excluding all others, arrogate to themselves the only
+knowledge of divinity. The Italians affirm they are the only masters of
+good letters and eloquence, and flatter themselves on this account, that
+of all others they only are not barbarous. In which kind of happiness
+those of Rome claim the first place, still dreaming to themselves of
+somewhat, I know not what, of old Rome. The Venetians fancy themselves
+happy in the opinion of their nobility. The Greeks, as if they were the
+only authors of sciences, swell themselves with the titles of the ancient
+heroes. The Turk, and all that sink of the truly barbarous, challenge to
+themselves the only glory of religion and laugh at Christians as
+superstitious. And much more pleasantly the Jews expect to this day the
+coming of the Messiah, and so obstinately contend for their Law of Moses.
+The Spaniards give place to none in the reputation of soldiery. The
+Germans pride themselves in their tallness of stature and skill in magic.
+
+And, not to instance in every particular, you see, I conceive, how much
+satisfaction this Self-love, who has a sister also not unlike herself
+called Flattery, begets everywhere; for self-love is no more than the
+soothing of a man's self, which, done to another, is flattery. And though
+perhaps at this day it may be thought infamous, yet it is so only with
+them that are more taken with words than things. They think truth is
+inconsistent with flattery, but that it is much otherwise we may learn
+from the examples of true beasts. What more fawning than a dog? And yet
+what more trusty? What has more of those little tricks than a squirrel?
+And yet what more loving to man? Unless, perhaps you'll say, men had
+better converse with fierce lions, merciless tigers, and furious
+leopards. For that flattery is the most pernicious of all things, by
+means of which some treacherous persons and mockers have run the
+credulous into such mischief. But this of mine proceeds from a certain
+gentleness and uprightness of mind and comes nearer to virtue than its
+opposite, austerity, or a morose and troublesome peevishness, as Horace
+calls it. This supports the dejected, relieves the distressed, encourages
+the fainting, awakens the stupid, refreshes the sick, supplies the
+untractable, joins loves together, and keeps them so joined. It entices
+children to take their learning, makes old men frolic, and, under the
+color of praise, does without offense both tell princes their faults and
+show them the way to amend them. In short, it makes every man the more
+jocund and acceptable to himself, which is the chiefest point of
+felicity. Again, what is more friendly than when two horses scrub one
+another? And to say nothing of it, that it's a main part of physic,
+and the only thing in poetry; 'tis the delight and relish of all
+human society.
+
+But 'tis a sad thing, they say, to be mistaken. Nay rather, he is most
+miserable that is not so. For they are quite beside the mark that place
+the happiness of men in things themselves, since it only depends upon
+opinion. For so great is the obscurity and variety of human affairs that
+nothing can be clearly known, as it is truly said by our academics, the
+least insolent of all the philosophers; or if it could, it would but
+obstruct the pleasure of life. Lastly, the mind of man is so framed that
+it is rather taken with the false colors than truth; of which if anyone
+has a mind to make the experiment, let him go to church and hear sermons,
+in which if there be anything serious delivered, the audience is either
+asleep, yawning, or weary of it; but if the preacher--pardon my mistake,
+I would have said declaimer--as too often it happens, fall but into an
+old wives' story, they're presently awake, prick up their ears and gape
+after it. In like manner, if there be any poetical saint, or one of whom
+there goes more stories than ordinary, as for example, a George, a
+Christopher, or a Barbara, you shall see him more religiously worshiped
+than Peter, Paul, or even Christ himself. But these things are not for
+this place.
+
+And now at how cheap a rate is this happiness purchased! Forasmuch as to
+the thing itself a man's whole endeavor is required, be it never so
+inconsiderable; but the opinion of it is easily taken up, which yet
+conduces as much or more to happiness. For suppose a man were eating
+rotten stockfish, the very smell of which would choke another, and yet
+believed it a dish for the gods, what difference is there as to his
+happiness? Whereas on the contrary, if another's stomach should turn at a
+sturgeon, wherein, I pray, is he happier than the other? If a man have a
+crooked, ill-favored wife, who yet in his eye may stand in competition
+with Venus, is it not the same as if she were truly beautiful? Or if
+seeing an ugly, ill-pointed piece, he should admire the work as believing
+it some great master's hand, were he not much happier, think you, than
+they that buy such things at vast rates, and yet perhaps reap less
+pleasure from them than the other? I know one of my name that gave his
+new married wife some counterfeit jewels, and as he was a pleasant droll,
+persuaded her that they were not only right but of an inestimable price;
+and what difference, I pray, to her, that was as well pleased and
+contented with glass and kept it as warily as if it had been a treasure?
+In the meantime the husband saved his money and had this advantage of her
+folly, that he obliged her as much as if he had bought them at a great
+rate. Or what difference, think you, between those in Plato's imaginary
+cave that stand gaping at the shadows and figures of things, so they
+please themselves and have no need to wish, and that wise man, who, being
+got loose from them, sees things truly as they are? Whereas that cobbler
+in Lucian if he might always have continued his golden dreams, he would
+never have desired any other happiness. So then there is no difference;
+or, if there be, the fools have the advantage: first, in that their
+happiness costs them least, that is to say, only some small persuasion;
+next, that they enjoy it in common. And the possession of no good can be
+delightful without a companion. For who does not know what a dearth there
+is of wise men, if yet any one be to be found? And though the Greeks for
+these so many ages have accounted upon seven only, yet so help me
+Hercules, do but examine them narrowly, and I'll be hanged if you find
+one half-witted fellow, nay or so much as one-quarter of a wise man,
+among them all.
+
+For whereas among the many praises of Bacchus they reckon this the chief,
+that he washes away cares, and that too in an instant, do but sleep off
+his weak spirits, and they come on again, as we say, on horseback. But
+how much larger and more present is the benefit you receive by me, since,
+as it were with a perpetual drunkenness I fill your minds with mirth,
+fancies, and jollities, and that too without any trouble? Nor is there
+any man living whom I let be without it; whereas the gifts of the gods
+are scrambled, some to one and some to another. The sprightly delicious
+wine that drives away cares and leaves such a flavor behind it grows not
+everywhere. Beauty, the gift of Venus, happens to few; and to fewer gives
+Mercury eloquence. Hercules makes not everyone rich. Homer's Jupiter
+bestows not empire on all men. Mars oftentimes favors neither side. Many
+return sad from Apollo's oracle. Phoebus sometimes shoots a plague among
+us. Neptune drowns more than he saves: to say nothing of those
+mischievous gods, Plutoes, Ates, punishments, favors, and the like, not
+gods but executioners. I am that only Folly that so readily and
+indifferently bestows my benefits on all. Nor do I look to be entreated,
+or am I subject to take pet, and require an expiatory sacrifice if some
+ceremony be omitted. Nor do I beat heaven and earth together if, when the
+rest of the gods are invited, I am passed by or not admitted to the
+stream of their sacrifices. For the rest of the gods are so curious in
+this point that such an omission may chance to spoil a man's business;
+and therefore one has as good even let them alone as worship them: just
+like some men, who are so hard to please, and withall so ready to do
+mischief, that 'tis better be a stranger than have any familiarity
+with them.
+
+But no man, you'll say, ever sacrificed to Folly or built me a temple.
+And troth, as I said before, I cannot but wonder at the ingratitude; yet
+because I am easily to be entreated, I take this also in good part,
+though truly I can scarce request it. For why should I require incense,
+wafers, a goat, or sow when all men pay me that worship everywhere which
+is so much approved even by our very divines? Unless perhaps I should
+envy Diana that her sacrifices are mingled with human blood. Then do I
+conceive myself most religiously worshiped when everywhere, as 'tis
+generally done, men embrace me in their minds, express me in their
+manners, and represent me in their lives, which worship of the saints is
+not so ordinary among Christians. How many are there that burn candles to
+the Virgin Mother, and that too at noonday when there's no need of them!
+But how few are there that study to imitate her in pureness of life,
+humility and love of heavenly things, which is the true worship and most
+acceptable to heaven! Besides why should I desire a temple when the whole
+world is my temple, and I'm deceived or 'tis a goodly one? Nor can I want
+priests but in a land where there are no men. Nor am I yet so foolish as
+to require statues or painted images, which do often obstruct my worship,
+since among the stupid and gross multitude those figures are worshiped
+for the saints themselves. And so it would fare with me, as it does with
+them that are turned out of doors by their substitutes. No, I have
+statues enough, and as many as there are men, everyone bearing my lively
+resemblance in his face, how unwilling so ever he be to the contrary. And
+therefore there is no reason why I should envy the rest of the gods if in
+particular places they have their particular worship, and that too on set
+days--as Phoebus at Rhodes; at Cyprus, Venus; at Argos, Juno; at Athens,
+Minerva; in Olympus, Jupiter; at Tarentum, Neptune; and near the
+Hellespont, Priapus--as long as the world in general performs me every
+day much better sacrifices.
+
+Wherein notwithstanding if I shall seem to anyone to have spoken more
+boldly than truly, let us, if you please, look a little into the lives of
+men, and it will easily appear not only how much they owe to me, but how
+much they esteem me even from the highest to the lowest. And yet we will
+not run over the lives of everyone, for that would be too long, but only
+some few of the great ones, from whence we shall easily conjecture the
+rest. For to what purpose is it to say anything of the common people, who
+without dispute are wholly mine? For they abound everywhere with so many
+several sorts of folly, and are every day so busy in inventing new, that
+a thousand Democriti are too few for so general a laughter though there
+were another Democritus to laugh at them too. 'Tis almost incredible what
+sport and pastime they daily make the gods; for though they set aside
+their sober forenoon hours to dispatch business and receive prayers, yet
+when they begin to be well whittled with nectar and cannot think of
+anything that's serious, they get them up into some part of heaven that
+has better prospect than other and thence look down upon the actions of
+men. Nor is there anything that pleases them better. Good, good! what an
+excellent sight it is! How many several hurly-burlies of fools! for I
+myself sometimes sit among those poetical gods.
+
+Here's one desperately in love with a young wench, and the more she
+slights him the more outrageously he loves her. Another marries a woman's
+money, not herself. Another's jealousy keeps more eyes on her than Argos.
+Another becomes a mourner, and how foolishly he carries it! nay, hires
+others to bear him company to make it more ridiculous. Another weeps over
+his mother-in-law's grave. Another spends all he can rap and run on his
+belly, to be the more hungry after it. Another thinks there is no
+happiness but in sleep and idleness. Another turmoils himself about other
+men's business and neglects his own. Another thinks himself rich in
+taking up moneys and changing securities, as we say borrowing of Peter to
+pay Paul, and in a short time becomes bankrupt. Another starves himself
+to enrich his heir. Another for a small and uncertain gain exposes his
+life to the casualties of seas and winds, which yet no money can restore.
+Another had rather get riches by war than live peaceably at home. And
+some there are that think them easiest attained by courting old childless
+men with presents; and others again by making rich old women believe they
+love them; both which afford the gods most excellent pastime, to see them
+cheated by those persons they thought to have over-caught. But the most
+foolish and basest of all others are our merchants, to wit such as
+venture on everything be it never so dishonest, and manage it no better;
+who though they lie by no allowance, swear and forswear, steal, cozen,
+and cheat, yet shuffle themselves into the first rank, and all because
+they have gold rings on their fingers. Nor are they without their
+flattering friars that admire them and give them openly the title of
+honorable, in hopes, no doubt, to get some small snip of it themselves.
+
+There are also a kind of Pythagoreans with whom all things are so common
+that if they get anything under their cloaks, they make no more scruple
+of carrying it away than if it were their own by inheritance. There are
+others too that are only rich in conceit, and while they fancy to
+themselves pleasant dreams, conceive that enough to make them happy. Some
+desire to be accounted wealthy abroad and are yet ready to starve at
+home. One makes what haste he can to set all going, and another rakes it
+together by right or wrong. This man is ever laboring for public honors,
+and another lies sleeping in a chimney corner. A great many undertake
+endless suits and outvie one another who shall most enrich the dilatory
+judge or corrupt advocate. One is all for innovations and another for
+some great he-knows-not-what. Another leaves his wife and children at
+home and goes to Jerusalem, Rome, or in pilgrimage to St. James's where
+he has no business. In short, if a man like Menippus of old could look
+down from the moon and behold those innumerable rufflings of mankind, he
+would think he saw a swarm of flies and gnats quarreling among
+themselves, fighting, laying traps for one another, snatching, playing,
+wantoning, growing up, falling, and dying. Nor is it to be believed what
+stir, what broils, this little creature raises, and yet in how short a
+time it comes to nothing itself; while sometimes war, other times
+pestilence, sweeps off many thousands of them together.
+
+But let me be most foolish myself, and one whom Democritus may not only
+laugh at but flout, if I go one foot further in the discovery of the
+follies and madnesses of the common people. I'll betake me to them that
+carry the reputation of wise men and hunt after that golden bough, as
+says the proverb. Among whom the grammarians hold the first place, a
+generation of men than whom nothing would be more miserable, nothing more
+perplexed, nothing more hated of the gods, did not I allay the troubles
+of that pitiful profession with a certain kind of pleasant madness. For
+they are not only subject to those five curses with which Home begins his
+Iliads, as says the Greek epigram, but six hundred; as being ever
+hunger-starved and slovens in their schools--schools, did I say? Nay,
+rather cloisters, bridewells, or slaughterhouses--grown old among a
+company of boys, deaf with their noise, and pined away with stench and
+nastiness. And yet by my courtesy it is that they think themselves the
+most excellent of all men, so greatly do they please themselves in
+frighting a company of fearful boys with a thundering voice and big looks,
+tormenting them with ferules, rods, and whips; and, laying about them
+without fear or wit, imitate the ass in the lion's skin. In the meantime
+all that nastiness seems absolute spruceness, that stench a perfume, and
+that miserable slavery a kingdom, and such too as they would not change
+their tyranny for Phalaris' or Dionysius' empire. Nor are they less happy
+in that new opinion they have taken up of being learned; for whereas most
+of them beat into boys' heads nothing but foolish toys, yet, you good
+gods! what Palemon, what Donatus, do they not scorn in comparison of
+themselves? And so, I know not by what tricks, they bring it about that
+to their boys' foolish mothers and dolt-headed fathers they pass for such
+as they fancy themselves. Add to this that other pleasure of theirs, that
+if any of them happen to find out who was Anchises' mother, or pick out
+of some worm-eaten manuscript a word not commonly known--as suppose it
+bubsequa for a cowherd, bovinator for a wrangler, manticulator for a
+cutpurse--or dig up the ruins of some ancient monument with the letters
+half eaten out; O Jupiter! what towerings! what triumphs! what
+commendations! as if they had conquered Africa or taken in Babylon.
+
+But what of this when they give up and down their foolish insipid verses,
+and there wants not others that admire them as much? They believe
+presently that Virgil's soul is transmigrated into them! But nothing like
+this, when with mutual compliments they praise, admire, and claw one
+another. Whereas if another do but slip a word and one more quick-sighted
+than the rest discover it by accident, O Hercules! what uproars, what
+bickerings, what taunts, what invectives! If I lie, let me have the ill
+will of all the grammarians. I knew in my time one of many arts, a
+Grecian, a Latinist, a mathematician, a philosopher, a physician, a man
+master of them all, and sixty years of age, who, laying by all the rest,
+perplexed and tormented himself for above twenty years in the study of
+grammar, fully reckoning himself a prince if he might but live so long
+till he could certainly determine how the eight parts of speech were to
+be distinguished, which none of the Greeks or Latins had yet fully
+cleared: as if it were a matter to be decided by the sword if a man made
+an adverb of a conjunction. And for this cause is it that we have as many
+grammars as grammarians; nay more, forasmuch as my friend Aldus has given
+us above five, not passing by any kind of grammar, how barbarously or
+tediously soever compiled, which he has not turned over and examined;
+envying every man's attempts in this kind, how to be pitied than happy,
+as persons that are ever tormenting themselves; adding, changing, putting
+in, blotting out, revising, reprinting, showing it to friends, and nine
+years in correcting, yet never fully satisfied; at so great a rate do
+they purchase this vain reward, to wit, praise, and that too of a very
+few, with so many watchings, so much sweat, so much vexation and loss of
+sleep, the most precious of all things. Add to this the waste of health,
+spoil of complexion, weakness of eyes or rather blindness, poverty, envy,
+abstinence from pleasure, over-hasty old age, untimely death, and the
+like; so highly does this wise man value the approbation of one or two
+blear-eyed fellows. But how much happier is this my writer's dotage who
+never studies for anything but puts in writing whatever he pleases or
+what comes first in his head, though it be but his dreams; and all this
+with small waste of paper, as well knowing that the vainer those trifles
+are, the higher esteem they will have with the greater number, that is to
+say all the fools and unlearned. And what matter is it to slight those
+few learned if yet they ever read them? Or of what authority will the
+censure of so few wise men be against so great a cloud of gainsayers?
+
+But they are the wiser that put out other men's works for their own, and
+transfer that glory which others with great pains have obtained to
+themselves; relying on this, that they conceive, though it should so
+happen that their theft be never so plainly detected, that yet they
+should enjoy the pleasure of it for the present. And 'tis worth one's
+while to consider how they please themselves when they are applauded by
+the common people, pointed at in a crowd, "This is that excellent
+person;" lie on booksellers' stalls; and in the top of every page have
+three hard words read, but chiefly exotic and next degree to conjuring;
+which, by the immortal gods! what are they but mere words? And again, if
+you consider the world, by how few understood, and praised by fewer! for
+even among the unlearned there are different palates. Or what is it that
+their own very names are often counterfeit or borrowed from some books of
+the ancients? When one styles himself Telemachus, another Sthenelus, a
+third Laertes, a fourth Polycrates, a fifth Thrasymachus. So that there
+is no difference whether they title their books with the "Tale of a Tub,"
+or, according to the philosophers, by alpha, beta.
+
+But the most pleasant of all is to see them praise one another with
+reciprocal epistles, verses, and encomiums; fools their fellow fools, and
+dunces their brother dunces. This, in the other's opinion, is an absolute
+Alcaeus; and the other, in his, a very Callimachus. He looks upon Tully
+as nothing to the other, and the other again pronounces him more learned
+than Plato. And sometimes too they pick out their antagonist and think to
+raise themselves a fame by writing one against the other; while the giddy
+multitude are so long divided to whether of the two they shall determine
+the victory, till each goes off conqueror, and, as if he had done some
+great action, fancies himself a triumph. And now wise men laugh at these
+things as foolish, as indeed they are. Who denies it? Yet in the
+meantime, such is my kindness to them, they live a merry life and would
+not change their imaginary triumphs, no, not with the Scipioes. While yet
+those learned men, though they laugh their fill and reap the benefit of
+the other's folly, cannot without ingratitude deny but that even they too
+are not a little beholding to me themselves.
+
+And among them our advocates challenge the first place, nor is there any
+sort of people that please themselves like them: for while they daily
+roll Sisyphus his stone, and quote you a thousand cases, as it were, in a
+breath no matter how little to the purpose, and heap glosses upon
+glosses, and opinions on the neck of opinions, they bring it at last to
+this pass, that that study of all other seems the most difficult. Add to
+these our logicians and sophists, a generation of men more prattling than
+an echo and the worst of them able to outchat a hundred of the best
+picked gossips. And yet their condition would be much better were they
+only full of words and not so given to scolding that they most
+obstinately hack and hew one another about a matter of nothing and make
+such a sputter about terms and words till they have quite lost the sense.
+And yet they are so happy in the good opinion of themselves that as soon
+as they are furnished with two or three syllogisms, they dare boldly
+enter the lists against any man upon any point, as not doubting but to
+run him down with noise, though the opponent were another Stentor.
+
+And next these come our philosophers, so much reverenced for their furred
+gowns and starched beards that they look upon themselves as the only wise
+men and all others as shadows. And yet how pleasantly do they dote while
+they frame in their heads innumerable worlds; measure out the sun, the
+moon, the stars, nay and heaven itself, as it were, with a pair of
+compasses; lay down the causes of lightning, winds, eclipses, and other
+the like inexplicable matters; and all this too without the least
+doubting, as if they were Nature's secretaries, or dropped down among us
+from the council of the gods; while in the meantime Nature laughs at them
+and all their blind conjectures. For that they know nothing, even this is
+a sufficient argument, that they don't agree among themselves and so are
+incomprehensible touching every particular. These, though they have not
+the least degree of knowledge, profess yet that they have mastered all;
+nay, though they neither know themselves, nor perceive a ditch or block
+that lies in their way, for that perhaps most of them are half blind, or
+their wits a wool-gathering, yet give out that they have discovered
+ideas, universalities, separated forms, first matters, quiddities,
+haecceities, formalities, and the like stuff; things so thin and bodiless
+that I believe even Lynceus himself was not able to perceive them. But
+then chiefly do they disdain the unhallowed crowd as often as with their
+triangles, quadrangles, circles, and the like mathematical devices, more
+confounded than a labyrinth, and letters disposed one against the other,
+as it were in battle array, they cast a mist before the eyes of the
+ignorant. Nor is there wanting of this kind some that pretend to
+foretell things by the stars and make promises of miracles beyond
+all things of soothsaying, and are so fortunate as to meet with people
+that believe them.
+
+But perhaps I had better pass over our divines in silence and not stir
+this pool or touch this fair but unsavory plant, as a kind of men that
+are supercilious beyond comparison, and to that too, implacable; lest
+setting them about my ears, they attack me by troops and force me to a
+recantation sermon, which if I refuse, they straight pronounce me a
+heretic. For this is the thunderbolt with which they fright those whom
+they are resolved not to favor. And truly, though there are few others
+that less willingly acknowledge the kindnesses I have done them, yet even
+these too stand fast bound to me upon no ordinary accounts; while being
+happy in their own opinion, and as if they dwelt in the third heaven,
+they look with haughtiness on all others as poor creeping things and
+could almost find in their hearts to pity them; while hedged in with so
+many magisterial definitions, conclusions, corollaries, propositions
+explicit and implicit, they abound with so many starting-holes that
+Vulcan's net cannot hold them so fast, but they'll slip through with
+their distinctions, with which they so easily cut all knots asunder that
+a hatchet could not have done it better, so plentiful are they in their
+new-found words and prodigious terms. Besides, while they explicate the
+most hidden mysteries according to their own fancy--as how the world was
+first made; how original sin is derived to posterity; in what manner, how
+much room, and how long time Christ lay in the Virgin's womb; how
+accidents subsist in the Eucharist without their subject.
+
+But these are common and threadbare; these are worthy of our great and
+illuminated divines, as the world calls them! At these, if ever they fall
+athwart them, they prick up--as whether there was any instant of time in
+the generation of the Second Person; whether there be more than one
+filiation in Christ; whether it be a possible proposition that God the
+Father hates the Son; or whether it was possible that Christ could have
+taken upon Him the likeness of a woman, or of the devil, or of an ass, or
+of a stone, or of a gourd; and then how that gourd should have preached,
+wrought miracles, or been hung on the cross; and what Peter had
+consecrated if he had administered the Sacrament at what time the body of
+Christ hung upon the cross; or whether at the same time he might be said
+to be man; whether after the Resurrection there will be any eating and
+drinking, since we are so much afraid of hunger and thirst in this world.
+There are infinite of these subtle trifles, and others more subtle than
+these, of notions, relations, instants, formalities, quiddities,
+haecceities, which no one can perceive without a Lynceus whose eyes could
+look through a stone wall and discover those things through the thickest
+darkness that never were.
+
+Add to this those their other determinations, and those too so contrary
+to common opinion that those oracles of the Stoics, which they call
+paradoxes, seem in comparison of these but blockish and idle--as 'tis a
+lesser crime to kill a thousand men than to set a stitch on a poor man's
+shoe on the Sabbath day; and that a man should rather choose that the
+whole world with all food and raiment, as they say, should perish, than
+tell a lie, though never so inconsiderable. And these most subtle
+subtleties are rendered yet more subtle by the several methods of so many
+Schoolmen, that one might sooner wind himself out of a labyrinth than the
+entanglements of the realists, nominalists, Thomists, Albertists,
+Occamists, Scotists. Nor have I named all the several sects, but only
+some of the chief; in all which there is so much doctrine and so much
+difficulty that I may well conceive the apostles, had they been to deal
+with these new kind of divines, had needed to have prayed in aid of some
+other spirit.
+
+Paul knew what faith was, and yet when he said, "Faith is the substance
+of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen," he did not
+define it doctor-like. And as he understood charity well himself, so he
+did as illogically divide and define it to others in his first Epistle to
+the Corinthians, Chapter the thirteenth. And devoutly, no doubt, did the
+apostles consecrate the Eucharist; yet, had they been asked the question
+touching the "terminus a quo" and the "terminus ad quem" of
+transubstantiation; of the manner how the same body can be in several
+places at one and the same time; of the difference the body of Christ has
+in heaven from that of the cross, or this in the Sacrament; in what point
+of time transubstantiation is, whereas prayer, by means of which it is,
+as being a discrete quantity, is transient; they would not, I conceive,
+have answered with the same subtlety as the Scotists dispute and define
+it. They knew the mother of Jesus, but which of them has so
+philosophically demonstrated how she was preserved from original sin as
+have done our divines? Peter received the keys, and from Him too that
+would not have trusted them with a person unworthy; yet whether he had
+understanding or no, I know not, for certainly he never attained to that
+subtlety to determine how he could have the key of knowledge that had no
+knowledge himself. They baptized far and near, and yet taught nowhere
+what was the formal, material, efficient, and final cause of baptism, nor
+made the least mention of delible and indelible characters. They
+worshiped, 'tis true, but in spirit, following herein no other than that
+of the Gospel, "God is a Spirit, and they that worship, must worship him
+in spirit and truth;" yet it does not appear it was at that time revealed
+to them that an image sketched on the wall with a coal was to be
+worshiped with the same worship as Christ Himself, if at least the two
+forefingers be stretched out, the hair long and uncut, and have three
+rays about the crown of the head. For who can conceive these things,
+unless he has spent at least six and thirty years in the philosophical
+and supercelestial whims of Aristotle and the Schoolmen?
+
+In like manner, the apostles press to us grace; but which of them
+distinguishes between free grace and grace that makes a man acceptable?
+They exhort us to good works, and yet determine not what is the work
+working, and what a resting in the work done. They incite us to charity,
+and yet make no difference between charity infused and charity wrought in
+us by our own endeavors. Nor do they declare whether it be an accident or
+a substance, a thing created or uncreated. They detest and abominate sin,
+but let me not live if they could define according to art what that is
+which we call sin, unless perhaps they were inspired by the spirit of the
+Scotists. Nor can I be brought to believe that Paul, by whose learning
+you may judge the rest, would have so often condemned questions,
+disputes, genealogies, and, as himself calls them, "strifes of words," if
+he had thoroughly understood those subtleties, especially when all the
+debates and controversies of those times were rude and blockish in
+comparison of the more than Chrysippean subtleties of our masters.
+Although yet the gentlemen are so modest that if they meet with anything
+written by the apostles not so smooth and even as might be expected from
+a master, they do not presently condemn it but handsomely bend it to
+their own purpose, so great respect and honor do they give, partly to
+antiquity and partly to the name of apostle. And truly 'twas a kind of
+injustice to require so great things of them that never heard the least
+word from their masters concerning it. And so if the like happen in
+Chrysostom, Basil, Jerome, they think it enough to say they are not
+obliged by it.
+
+The apostles also confuted the heathen philosophers and Jews, a people
+than whom none more obstinate, but rather by their good lives and
+miracles than syllogisms: and yet there was scarce one among them that
+was capable of understanding the least "quodlibet" of the Scotists. But
+now, where is that heathen or heretic that must not presently stoop to
+such wire-drawn subtleties, unless he be so thick-skulled that he can't
+apprehend them, or so impudent as to hiss them down, or, being furnished
+with the same tricks, be able to make his party good with them? As if a
+man should set a conjurer on work against a conjurer, or fight with one
+hallowed sword against another, which would prove no other than a work to
+no purpose. For my own part I conceive the Christians would do much
+better if instead of those dull troops and companies of soldiers with
+which they have managed their war with such doubtful success, they would
+send the bawling Scotists, the most obstinate Occamists, and invincible
+Albertists to war against the Turks and Saracens; and they would see, I
+guess, a most pleasant combat and such a victory as was never before. For
+who is so faint whom their devices will not enliven? who so stupid whom
+such spurs can't quicken? or who so quick-sighted before whose eyes they
+can't cast a mist?
+
+But you'll say, I jest. Nor are you without cause, since even among
+divines themselves there are some that have learned better and are ready
+to turn their stomachs at those foolish subtleties of the others. There
+are some that detest them as a kind of sacrilege and count it the height
+of impiety to speak so irreverently of such hidden things, rather to be
+adored than explicated; to dispute of them with such profane and
+heathenish niceties; to define them so arrogantly and pollute the majesty
+of divinity with such pithless and sordid terms and opinions. Meantime
+the others please, nay hug themselves in their happiness, and are so
+taken up with these pleasant trifles that they have not so much leisure
+as to cast the least eye on the Gospel or St. Paul's epistles. And while
+they play the fool at this rate in their schools, they make account the
+universal church would otherwise perish, unless, as the poets fancied of
+Atlas that he supported heaven with his shoulders, they underpropped the
+other with their syllogistical buttresses. And how great a happiness is
+this, think you? while, as if Holy Writ were a nose of wax, they fashion
+and refashion it according to their pleasure; while they require that
+their own conclusions, subscribed by two or three Schoolmen, be accounted
+greater than Solon's laws and preferred before the papal decretals;
+while, as censors of the world, they force everyone to a recantation that
+differs but a hair's breadth from the least of their explicit or implicit
+determinations. And those too they pronounce like oracles. This
+proposition is scandalous; this irreverent; this has a smack of heresy;
+this no very good sound: so that neither baptism, nor the Gospel, nor
+Paul, nor Peter, nor St. Jerome, nor St. Augustine, no nor most
+Aristotelian Thomas himself can make a man a Christian, without these
+bachelors too be pleased to give him his grace. And the like in their
+subtlety in judging; for who would think he were no Christian that should
+say these two speeches "matula putes" and "matula putet," or "ollae
+fervere" and "ollam fervere" were not both good Latin, unless their
+wisdoms had taught us the contrary? who had delivered the church from
+such mists of error, which yet no one ever met with, had they not come
+out with some university seal for it? And are they not most happy while
+they do these things?
+
+Then for what concerns hell, how exactly they describe everything, as if
+they had been conversant in that commonwealth most part of their time!
+Again, how do they frame in their fancy new orbs, adding to those we have
+already an eighth! a goodly one, no doubt, and spacious enough, lest
+perhaps their happy souls might lack room to walk in, entertain their
+friends, and now and then play at football. And with these and a thousand
+the like fopperies their heads are so full stuffed and stretched that I
+believe Jupiter's brain was not near so big when, being in labor with
+Pallas, he was beholding to the midwifery of Vulcan's axe. And therefore
+you must not wonder if in their public disputes they are so bound about
+the head, lest otherwise perhaps their brains might leap out. Nay, I have
+sometimes laughed myself to see them so tower in their own opinion when
+they speak most barbarously; and when they humh and hawh so pitifully
+that none but one of their own tribe can understand them, they call it
+heights which the vulgar can't reach; for they say 'tis beneath the
+dignity of divine mysteries to be cramped and tied up to the narrow rules
+of grammarians: from whence we may conjecture the great prerogative of
+divines, if they only have the privilege of speaking corruptly, in which
+yet every cobbler thinks himself concerned for his share. Lastly, they
+look upon themselves as somewhat more than men as often as they are
+devoutly saluted by the name of "Our Masters," in which they fancy there
+lies as much as in the Jews' "Jehovah;" and therefore they reckon it a
+crime if "Magister Noster" be written other than in capital letters; and
+if anyone should preposterously say "Noster Magister," he has at once
+overturned the whole body of divinity.
+
+And next these come those that commonly call themselves the religious and
+monks, most false in both titles, when both a great part of them are
+farthest from religion, and no men swarm thicker in all places than
+themselves. Nor can I think of anything that could be more miserable did
+not I support them so many several ways. For whereas all men detest them
+to that height, that they take it for ill luck to meet one of them by
+chance, yet such is their happiness that they flatter themselves. For
+first, they reckon it one of the main points of piety if they are so
+illiterate that they can't so much as read. And then when they run over
+their offices, which they carry about them, rather by tale than
+understanding, they believe the gods more than ordinarily pleased with
+their braying. And some there are among them that put off their
+trumperies at vast rates, yet rove up and down for the bread they eat;
+nay, there is scarce an inn, wagon, or ship into which they intrude not,
+to the no small damage of the commonwealth of beggars. And yet, like
+pleasant fellows, with all this vileness, ignorance, rudeness, and
+impudence, they represent to us, for so they call it, the lives of the
+apostles. Yet what is more pleasant than that they do all things by rule
+and, as it were, a kind of mathematics, the least swerving from which
+were a crime beyond forgiveness--as how many knots their shoes must be
+tied with, of what color everything is, what distinction of habits, of
+what stuff made, how many straws broad their girdles and of what fashion,
+how many bushels wide their cowl, how many fingers long their hair, and
+how many hours sleep; which exact equality, how disproportionate it is,
+among such variety of bodies and tempers, who is there that does not
+perceive it? And yet by reason of these fooleries they not only set
+slight by others, but each different order, men otherwise professing
+apostolical charity, despise one another, and for the different wearing
+of a habit, or that 'tis of darker color, they put all things in
+combustion. And among these there are some so rigidly religious that
+their upper garment is haircloth, their inner of the finest linen; and,
+on the contrary, others wear linen without and hair next their skins.
+Others, again, are as afraid to touch money as poison, and yet neither
+forbear wine nor dallying with women. In a word, 'tis their only care
+that none of them come near one another in their manner of living, nor
+do they endeavor how they may be like Christ, but how they may differ
+among themselves.
+
+And another great happiness they conceive in their names, while they call
+themselves Cordiliers, and among these too, some are Colletes, some
+Minors, some Minims, some Crossed; and again, these are Benedictines,
+those Bernardines; these Carmelites, those Augustines; these Williamites,
+and those Jacobines; as if it were not worth the while to be called
+Christians. And of these, a great part build so much on their ceremonies
+and petty traditions of men that they think one heaven is too poor a
+reward for so great merit, little dreaming that the time will come when
+Christ, not regarding any of these trifles, will call them to account for
+His precept of charity. One shall show you a large trough full of all
+kinds of fish; another tumble you out so many bushels of prayers; another
+reckon you so many myriads of fasts, and fetch them up again in one
+dinner by eating till he cracks again; another produces more bundles of
+ceremonies than seven of the stoutest ships would be able to carry;
+another brags he has not touched a penny these three score years without
+two pair of gloves at least upon his hands; another wears a cowl so lined
+with grease that the poorest tarpaulin would not stoop to take it up;
+another will tell you he has lived these fifty-five years like a sponge,
+continually fastened to the same place; another is grown hoarse with his
+daily chanting; another has contracted a lethargy by his solitary living;
+and another the palsy in his tongue for want of speaking. But Christ,
+interrupting them in their vanities, which otherwise were endless, will
+ask them, "Whence this new kind of Jews? I acknowledge one commandment,
+which is truly mine, of which alone I hear nothing. I promised, 'tis
+true, my Father's heritage, and that without parables, not to cowls, odd
+prayers, and fastings, but to the duties of faith and charity. Nor can I
+acknowledge them that least acknowledge their faults. They that would
+seem holier than myself, let them if they like possess to themselves
+those three hundred sixty-five heavens of Basilides the heretic's
+invention, or command them whose foolish traditions they have preferred
+before my precepts to erect them a new one." When they shall hear these
+things and see common ordinary persons preferred before them, with what
+countenance, think you, will they behold one another? In the meantime
+they are happy in their hopes, and for this also they are beholding
+to me.
+
+And yet these kind of people, though they are as it were of another
+commonwealth, no man dares despise, especially those begging friars,
+because they are privy to all men's secrets by means of confessions, as
+they call them. Which yet were no less than treason to discover, unless,
+being got drunk, they have a mind to be pleasant, and then all comes out,
+that is to say by hints and conjectures but suppressing the names. But if
+anyone should anger these wasps, they'll sufficiently revenge themselves
+in their public sermons and so point out their enemy by circumlocutions
+that there's no one but understands whom 'tis they mean, unless he
+understand nothing at all; nor will they give over their barking till you
+throw the dogs a bone. And now tell me, what juggler or mountebank you
+had rather behold than hear them rhetorically play the fool in their
+preachments, and yet most sweetly imitating what rhetoricians have
+written touching the art of good speaking? Good God! what several
+postures they have! How they shift their voice, sing out their words,
+skip up and down, and are ever and anon making such new faces that they
+confound all things with noise! And yet this knack of theirs is no less a
+mystery that runs in succession from one brother to another; which though
+it be not lawful for me to know, however I'll venture at it by
+conjectures. And first they invoke whatever they have scraped from the
+poets; and in the next place, if they are to discourse of charity, they
+take their rise from the river Nilus; or to set out the mystery of the
+cross, from bell and the dragon; or to dispute of fasting, from the
+twelve signs of the zodiac; or, being to preach of faith, ground their
+matter on the square of a circle.
+
+I have heard myself one, and he no small fool--I was mistaken, I would
+have said scholar--that being in a famous assembly explaining the mystery
+of the Trinity, that he might both let them see his learning was not
+ordinary and withal satisfy some theological ears, he took a new way, to
+wit from the letters, syllables, and the word itself; then from the
+coherence of the nominative case and the verb, and the adjective and
+substantive: and while most of the audience wondered, and some of them
+muttered that of Horace, "What does all this trumpery drive at?" at last
+he brought the matter to this head, that he would demonstrate that the
+mystery of the Trinity was so clearly expressed in the very rudiments of
+grammar that the best mathematician could not chalk it out more plainly.
+And in this discourse did this most superlative theologian beat his
+brains for eight whole months that at this hour he's as blind as a
+beetle, to wit, all the sight of his eyes being run into the sharpness of
+his wit. But for all that he thinks nothing of his blindness, rather
+taking the same for too cheap a price of such a glory as he won thereby.
+
+And besides him I met with another, some eighty years of age, and such a
+divine that you'd have sworn Scotus himself was revived in him. He, being
+upon the point of unfolding the mystery of the name Jesus, did with
+wonderful subtlety demonstrate that there lay hidden in those letters
+whatever could be said of him; for that it was only declined with three
+cases, he said, it was a manifest token of the Divine Trinity; and then,
+that the first ended in _S_, the second in _M_, the third in _U_, there
+was in it an ineffable mystery, to wit, those three letters declaring to
+us that he was the beginning, middle, and end (_summum, medium, et
+ultimum_) of all. Nay, the mystery was yet more abstruse; for he so
+mathematically split the word Jesus into two equal parts that he left the
+middle letter by itself, and then told us that that letter in Hebrew was
+_schin_ or _sin_, and that _sin_ in the Scotch tongue, as he remembered,
+signified as much as sin; from whence he gathered that it was Jesus that
+took away the sins of the world. At which new exposition the audience
+were so wonderfully intent and struck with admiration, especially the
+theologians, that there wanted little but that Niobe-like they had been
+turned to stones; whereas the like had almost happened to me, as befell
+the Priapus in Horace. And not without cause, for when were the Grecian
+Demosthenes or Roman Cicero ever guilty of the like? They thought that
+introduction faulty that was wide of the matter, as if it were not the
+way of carters and swineherds that have no more wit than God sent them.
+But these learned men think their preamble, for so they call it, then
+chiefly rhetorical when it has least coherence with the rest of the
+argument, that the admiring audience may in the meanwhile whisper to
+themselves, "What will he be at now?" In the third place, they bring in
+instead of narration some texts of Scripture, but handle them cursorily,
+and as it were by the bye, when yet it is the only thing they should have
+insisted on. And fourthly, as it were changing a part in the play, they
+bolt out with some question in divinity, and many times relating neither
+to earth nor heaven, and this they look upon as a piece of art. Here they
+erect their theological crests and beat into the people's ears those
+magnificent titles of illustrious doctors, subtle doctors, most subtle
+doctors, seraphic doctors, cherubin doctors, holy doctors, unquestionable
+doctors, and the like; and then throw abroad among the ignorant people
+syllogisms, majors, minors, conclusions, corollaries, suppositions, and
+those so weak and foolish that they are below pedantry. There remains yet
+the fifth act in which one would think they should show their mastery.
+And here they bring in some foolish insipid fable out of _Speculum
+Historiale_ or _Gesta Romanorum_ and expound it allegorically,
+tropologically, and anagogically. And after this manner do they and their
+chimera, and such as Horace despaired of compassing when he wrote "Humano
+capiti," etc.
+
+But they have heard from somebody, I know not whom, that the beginning of
+a speech should be sober and grave and least given to noise. And
+therefore they begin theirs at that rate they can scarce hear themselves,
+as if it were not matter whether anyone understood them. They have
+learned somewhere that to move the affections a louder voice is
+requisite. Whereupon they that otherwise would speak like a mouse in a
+cheese start out of a sudden into a downright fury, even there too, where
+there's the least need of it. A man would swear they were past the power
+of hellebore, so little do they consider where 'tis they run out. Again,
+because they have heard that as a speech comes up to something, a man
+should press it more earnestly, they, however they begin, use a strange
+contention of voice in every part, though the matter itself be never so
+flat, and end in that manner as if they'd run themselves out of breath.
+Lastly, they have learned that among rhetoricians there is some mention
+of laughter, and therefore they study to prick in a jest here and there;
+but, O Venus! so void of wit and so little to the purpose that it may be
+truly called an ass's playing on the harp. And sometimes also they use
+somewhat of a sting, but so nevertheless that they rather tickle than
+wound; nor do they ever more truly flatter than when they would seem to
+use the greatest freedom of speech. Lastly, such is their whole action
+that a man would swear they had learned it from our common tumblers,
+though yet they come short of them in every respect. However, they are
+both so like that no man will dispute but that either these learned their
+rhetoric from them, or they theirs from these. And yet they light on some
+that, when they hear them, conceive they hear very Demosthenes and
+Ciceroes: of which sort chiefly are our merchants and women, whose ears
+only they endeavor to please, because as to the first, if they stroke
+them handsomely, some part or other of their ill-gotten goods is wont to
+fall to their share. And the women, though for many other things they
+favor this order, this is not the least, that they commit to their
+breasts whatever discontents they have against their husbands. And now, I
+conceive me, you see how much this kind of people are beholding to me,
+that with their petty ceremonies, ridiculous trifles, and noise exercise
+a kind of tyranny among mankind, believing themselves very Pauls and
+Anthonies.
+
+But I willingly give over these stage-players that are such ingrateful
+dissemblers of the courtesies I have done them and such impudent
+pretenders to religion which they haven't. And now I have a mind to give
+some small touches of princes and courts, of whom I am had in reverence,
+aboveboard and, as it becomes gentlemen, frankly. And truly, if they had
+the least proportion of sound judgment, what life were more unpleasant
+than theirs, or so much to be avoided? For whoever did but truly weigh
+with himself how great a burden lies upon his shoulders that would truly
+discharge the duty of a prince, he would not think it worth his while to
+make his way to a crown by perjury and parricide. He would consider that
+he that takes a scepter in his hand should manage the public, not his
+private, interest; study nothing but the common good; and not in the
+least go contrary to those laws whereof himself is both the author and
+exactor: that he is to take an account of the good or evil administration
+of all his magistrates and subordinate officers; that, though he is but
+one, all men's eyes are upon him, and in his power it is, either like a
+good planet to give life and safety to mankind by his harmless influence,
+or like a fatal comet to send mischief and destruction; that the vices of
+other men are not alike felt, nor so generally communicated; and that a
+prince stands in that place that his least deviation from the rule of
+honesty and honor reaches farther than himself and opens a gap to many
+men's ruin. Besides, that the fortune of princes has many things
+attending it that are but too apt to train them out of the way, as
+pleasure, liberty, flattery, excess; for which cause he should the more
+diligently endeavor and set a watch over himself, lest perhaps he be led
+aside and fail in his duty. Lastly, to say nothing of treasons, ill will,
+and such other mischiefs he's in jeopardy of, that that True King is over
+his head, who in a short time will call him to account for every the
+least trespass, and that so much the more severely by how much more
+mighty was the empire committed to his charge. These and the like if a
+prince should duly weigh, and weigh it he would if he were wise, he would
+neither be able to sleep nor take any hearty repast.
+
+But now by my courtesy they leave all this care to the gods and are only
+taken up with themselves, not admitting anyone to their ear but such as
+know how to speak pleasant things and not trouble them with business.
+They believe they have discharged all the duty of a prince if they hunt
+every day, keep a stable of fine horses, sell dignities and commanderies,
+and invent new ways of draining the citizens' purses and bringing it into
+their own exchequer; but under such dainty new-found names that though
+the thing be most unjust in itself, it carries yet some face of equity;
+adding to this some little sweet'nings that whatever happens, they may be
+secure of the common people. And now suppose someone, such as they
+sometimes are, a man ignorant of laws, little less than an enemy to the
+public good, and minding nothing but his own, given up to pleasure, a
+hater of learning, liberty, and justice, studying nothing less than the
+public safety, but measuring everything by his own will and profit; and
+then put on him a golden chain that declares the accord of all virtues
+linked one to another; a crown set with diamonds, that should put him in
+mind how he ought to excel all others in heroic virtues; besides a
+scepter, the emblem of justice and an untainted heart; and lastly, a
+purple robe, a badge of that charity he owes the commonwealth. All which
+if a prince should compare them with his own life, he would, I believe,
+be clearly ashamed of his bravery, and be afraid lest some or other
+gibing expounder turn all this tragical furniture into a ridiculous
+laughingstock.
+
+And as to the court lords, what should I mention them? than most of whom
+though there be nothing more indebted, more servile, more witless, more
+contemptible, yet they would seem as they were the most excellent of all
+others. And yet in this only thing no men more modest, in that they are
+contented to wear about them gold, jewels, purple, and those other marks
+of virtue and wisdom; but for the study of the things themselves, they
+remit it to others, thinking it happiness enough for them that they can
+call the king master, have learned the cringe _a la mode_, know when and
+where to use those titles of Your Grace, My Lord, Your Magnificence; in a
+word that they are past all shame and can flatter pleasantly. For these
+are the arts that speak a man truly noble and an exact courtier. But if
+you look into their manner of life you'll find them mere sots, as
+debauched as Penelope's wooers; you know the other part of the verse,
+which the echo will better tell you than I can. They sleep till noon and
+have their mercenary Levite come to their bedside, where he chops over
+his matins before they are half up. Then to breakfast, which is scarce
+done but dinner stays for them. From thence they go to dice, tables,
+cards, or entertain themselves with jesters, fools, gambols, and horse
+tricks. In the meantime they have one or two beverages, and then supper,
+and after that a banquet, and 'twere well, by Jupiter, there were no more
+than one. And in this manner do their hours, days, months, years, age
+slide away without the least irksomeness. Nay, I have sometimes gone away
+many inches fatter, to see them speak big words; while each of the ladies
+believes herself so much nearer to the gods by how much the longer train
+she trails after her; while one nobleman edges out another, that he may
+get the nearer to Jupiter himself; and everyone of them pleases himself
+the more by how much more massive is the chain he swags on his shoulders,
+as if he meant to show his strength as well as his wealth.
+
+Nor are princes by themselves in their manner of life, since popes,
+cardinals, and bishops have so diligently followed their steps that
+they've almost got the start of them. For if any of them would consider
+what their Albe should put them in mind of, to wit a blameless life; what
+is meant by their forked miters, whose each point is held in by the same
+knot, we'll suppose it a perfect knowledge of the Old and New Testaments;
+what those gloves on their hands, but a sincere administration of the
+Sacraments, and free from all touch of worldly business; what their
+crosier, but a careful looking after the flock committed to their charge;
+what the cross born before them, but victory over all earthly affections
+--these, I say, and many of the like kind should anyone truly consider,
+would he not live a sad and troublesome life? Whereas now they do well
+enough while they feed themselves only, and for the care of their flock
+either put it over to Christ or lay it all on their suffragans, as they
+call them, or some poor vicars. Nor do they so much as remember their
+name, or what the word bishop signifies, to wit, labor, care, and
+trouble. But in racking to gather money they truly act the part of
+bishops, and herein acquit themselves to be no blind seers.
+
+In like manner cardinals, if they thought themselves the successors of
+the apostles, they would likewise imagine that the same things the other
+did are required of them, and that they are not lords but dispensers of
+spiritual things of which they must shortly give an exact account. But if
+they also would a little philosophize on their habit and think with
+themselves what's the meaning of their linen rochet, is it not a
+remarkable and singular integrity of life? What that inner purple; is it
+not an earnest and fervent love of God? Or what that outward, whose loose
+plaits and long train fall round his Reverence's mule and are large
+enough to cover a camel; is it not charity that spreads itself so wide to
+the succor of all men? that is, to instruct, exhort, comfort, reprehend,
+admonish, compose wars, resist wicked princes, and willingly expend not
+only their wealth but their very lives for the flock of Christ: though
+yet what need at all of wealth to them that supply the room of the poor
+apostles? These things, I say, did they but duly consider, they would not
+be so ambitious of that dignity; or, if they were, they would willingly
+leave it and live a laborious, careful life, such as was that of the
+ancient apostles.
+
+And for popes, that supply the place of Christ, if they should endeavor
+to imitate His life, to wit His poverty, labor, doctrine, cross, and
+contempt of life, or should they consider what the name pope, that is
+father, or holiness, imports, who would live more disconsolate than
+themselves? or who would purchase that chair with all his substance? or
+defend it, so purchased, with swords, poisons, and all force imaginable?
+so great a profit would the access of wisdom deprive him of--wisdom did I
+say? nay, the least corn of that salt which Christ speaks of: so much
+wealth, so much honor, so much riches, so many victories, so many
+offices, so many dispensations, so much tribute, so many pardons; such
+horses, such mules, such guards, and so much pleasure would it lose them.
+You see how much I have comprehended in a little: instead of which it
+would bring in watchings, fastings, tears, prayers, sermons, good
+endeavors, sighs, and a thousand the like troublesome exercises. Nor is
+this least considerable: so many scribes, so many copying clerks, so many
+notaries, so many advocates, so many promoters, so many secretaries, so
+many muleteers, so many grooms, so many bankers: in short, that vast
+multitude of men that overcharge the Roman See--I mistook, I meant honor
+--might beg their bread.
+
+A most inhuman and economical thing, and more to be execrated, that those
+great princes of the Church and true lights of the world should be
+reduced to a staff and a wallet. Whereas now, if there be anything that
+requires their pains, they leave that to Peter and Paul that have leisure
+enough; but if there be anything of honor or pleasure, they take that to
+themselves. By which means it is, yet by my courtesy, that scarce any
+kind of men live more voluptuously or with less trouble; as believing
+that Christ will be well enough pleased if in their mystical and almost
+mimical pontificality, ceremonies, titles of holiness and the like, and
+blessing and cursing, they play the parts of bishops. To work miracles is
+old and antiquated, and not in fashion now; to instruct the people,
+troublesome; to interpret the Scripture, pedantic; to pray, a sign one
+has little else to do; to shed tears, silly and womanish; to be poor,
+base; to be vanquished, dishonorable and little becoming him that scarce
+admits even kings to kiss his slipper; and lastly, to die, uncouth; and
+to be stretched on a cross, infamous.
+
+Theirs are only those weapons and sweet blessings which Paul mentions,
+and of these truly they are bountiful enough: as interdictions, hangings,
+heavy burdens, reproofs, anathemas, executions in effigy, and that
+terrible thunderbolt of excommunication, with the very sight of which
+they sink men's souls beneath the bottom of hell: which yet these most
+holy fathers in Christ and His vicars hurl with more fierceness against
+none than against such as, by the instigation of the devil, attempt to
+lessen or rob them of Peter's patrimony. When, though those words in the
+Gospel, "We have left all, and followed Thee," were his, yet they call
+his patrimony lands, cities, tribute, imposts, riches; for which, being
+enflamed with the love of Christ, they contend with fire and sword, and
+not without loss of much Christian blood, and believe they have then most
+apostolically defended the Church, the spouse of Christ, when the enemy,
+as they call them, are valiantly routed. As if the Church had any
+deadlier enemies than wicked prelates, who not only suffer Christ to run
+out of request for want of preaching him, but hinder his spreading by
+their multitudes of laws merely contrived for their own profit, corrupt
+him by their forced expositions, and murder him by the evil example of
+their pestilent life.
+
+Nay, further, whereas the Church of Christ was founded in blood,
+confirmed by blood, and augmented by blood, now, as if Christ, who after
+his wonted manner defends his people, were lost, they govern all by the
+sword. And whereas war is so savage a thing that it rather befits beasts
+than men, so outrageous that the very poets feigned it came from the
+Furies, so pestilent that it corrupts all men's manners, so unjust that
+it is best executed by the worst of men, so wicked that it has no
+agreement with Christ; and yet, omitting all the other, they make this
+their only business. Here you'll see decrepit old fellows acting the
+parts of young men, neither troubled at their costs, nor wearied with
+their labors, nor discouraged at anything, so they may have the liberty
+of turning laws, religion, peace, and all things else quite topsy-turvy.
+Nor are they destitute of their learned flatterers that call that
+palpable madness zeal, piety, and valor, having found out a new way by
+which a man may kill his brother without the least breach of that charity
+which, by the command of Christ, one Christian owes another. And here, in
+troth, I'm a little at a stand whether the ecclesiastical German electors
+gave them this example, or rather took it from them; who, laying aside
+their habit, benedictions, and all the like ceremonies, so act the part
+of commanders that they think it a mean thing, and least beseeming a
+bishop, to show the least courage to Godward unless it be in a battle.
+
+And as to the common herd of priests, they account it a crime to
+degenerate from the sanctity of their prelates. Heidah! How soldier-like
+they bustle about the _jus divinum_ of titles, and how quick-sighted they
+are to pick the least thing out of the writings of the ancients wherewith
+they may fright the common people and convince them, if possible, that
+more than a tenth is due! Yet in the meantime it least comes in their
+heads how many things are everywhere extant concerning that duty which
+they owe the people. Nor does their shorn crown in the least admonish
+them that a priest should be free from all worldly desires and think of
+nothing but heavenly things. Whereas on the contrary, these jolly fellows
+say they have sufficiently discharged their offices if they but anyhow
+mumble over a few odd prayers, which, so help me, Hercules! I wonder if
+any god either hear or understand, since they do neither themselves,
+especially when they thunder them out in that manner they are wont. But
+this they have in common with those of the heathens, that they are
+vigilant enough to the harvest of their profit, nor is there any of them
+that is not better read in those laws than the Scripture. Whereas if
+there be anything burdensome, they prudently lay that on other men's
+shoulders and shift it from one to the other, as men toss a ball from
+hand to hand, following herein the example of lay princes who commit the
+government of their kingdoms to their grand ministers, and they again to
+others, and leave all study of piety to the common people. In like manner
+the common people put it over to those they call ecclesiastics, as if
+themselves were no part of the Church, or that their vow in baptism had
+lost its obligation. Again, the priests that call themselves secular, as
+if they were initiated to the world, not to Christ, lay the burden on the
+regulars; the regulars on the monks; the monks that have more liberty on
+those that have less; and all of them on the mendicants; the mendicants
+on the Carthusians, among whom, if anywhere, this piety lies buried, but
+yet so close that scarce anyone can perceive it. In like manner the
+popes, the most diligent of all others in gathering in the harvest of
+money, refer all their apostolical work to the bishops, the bishops to
+the parsons, the parsons to the vicars, the vicars to their brother
+mendicants, and they again throw back the care of the flock on those that
+take the wool.
+
+But it is not my business to sift too narrowly the lives of prelates and
+priests for fear I seem to have intended rather a satire than an oration,
+and be thought to tax good princes while I praise the bad. And therefore,
+what I slightly taught before has been to no other end but that it might
+appear that there's no man can live pleasantly unless he be initiated to
+my rites and have me propitious to him. For how can it be otherwise when
+Fortune, the great directress of all human affairs, and myself are so all
+one that she was always an enemy to those wise men, and on the contrary
+so favorable to fools and careless fellows that all things hit luckily
+to them?
+
+You have heard of that Timotheus, the most fortunate general of the
+Athenians, of whom came that proverb, "His net caught fish, though he
+were asleep;" and that "The owl flies;" whereas these others hit
+properly, wise men "born in the fourth month;" and again, "He rides
+Sejanus's his horse;" and "gold of Toulouse," signifying thereby the
+extremity of ill fortune. But I forbear the further threading of
+proverbs, lest I seem to have pilfered my friend Erasmus' adages. Fortune
+loves those that have least wit and most confidence and such as like that
+saying of Caesar, "The die is thrown." But wisdom makes men bashful,
+which is the reason that those wise men have so little to do, unless it
+be with poverty, hunger, and chimney corners; that they live such
+neglected, unknown, and hated lives: whereas fools abound in money, have
+the chief commands in the commonwealth, and in a word, flourish every
+way. For if it be happiness to please princes and to be conversant among
+those golden and diamond gods, what is more unprofitable than wisdom, or
+what is it these kind of men have, may more justly be censured? If wealth
+is to be got, how little good at it is that merchant like to do, if
+following the precepts of wisdom, he should boggle at perjury; or being
+taken in a lie, blush; or in the least regard the sad scruples of those
+wise men touching rapine and usury. Again, if a man sue for honors or
+church preferments, an ass or wild ox shall sooner get them than a wise
+man. If a man's in love with a young wench, none of the least humors in
+this comedy, they are wholly addicted to fools and are afraid of a wise
+man and fly him as they would a scorpion. Lastly, whoever intend to live
+merry and frolic, shut their doors against wise men and admit anything
+sooner. In brief, go whither you will, among prelates, princes, judges,
+magistrates, friends, enemies, from highest to lowest, and you'll find
+all things done by money; which, as a wise man condemns it, so it takes a
+special care not to come near him. What shall I say? There is no measure
+or end of my praises, and yet 'tis fit my oration have an end. And
+therefore I'll even break off; and yet, before I do it, 'twill not be
+amiss if I briefly show you that there has not been wanting even great
+authors that have made me famous, both by their writings and actions,
+lest perhaps otherwise I may seem to have foolishly pleased myself only,
+or that the lawyers charge me that I have proved nothing. After their
+example, therefore, will I allege my proofs, that is to say, nothing to
+the point.
+
+And first, every man allows this proverb, "That where a man wants matter,
+he may best frame some." And to this purpose is that verse which we teach
+children, "'Tis the greatest wisdom to know when and where to counterfeit
+the fool." And now judge yourselves what an excellent thing this folly
+is, whose very counterfeit and semblance only has got such praise from
+the learned. But more candidly does that fat plump "Epicurean bacon-hog,"
+Horace, for so he calls himself, bid us "mingle our purposes with folly;"
+and whereas he adds the word _bravem_, short, perhaps to help out the
+verse, he might as well have let it alone; and again, "'Tis a pleasant
+thing to play the fool in the right season;" and in another place, he had
+rather "be accounted a dotterel and sot than to be wise and made mouths
+at." And Telemachus in Homer, whom the poet praises so much, is now and
+then called _nepios_, fool: and by the same name, as if there were some
+good fortune in it, are the tragedians wont to call boys and striplings.
+And what does that sacred book of Iliads contain but a kind of
+counter-scuffle between foolish kings and foolish people? Besides, how
+absolute is that praise that Cicero gives of it! "All things are full of
+fools." For who does not know that every good, the more diffusive it is,
+by so much the better it is?
+
+But perhaps their authority may be of small credit among Christians.
+We'll therefore, if you please, support our praises with some testimonies
+of Holy Writ also, in the first place, nevertheless, having forespoke our
+theologians that they'll give us leave to do it without offense. And in
+the next, forasmuch as we attempt a matter of some difficulty and it may
+be perhaps a little too saucy to call back again the Muses from Helicon
+to so great a journey, especially in a matter they are wholly strangers
+to, it will be more suitable, perhaps, while I play the divine and make
+my way through such prickly quiddities, that I entreat the soul of
+Scotus, a thing more bristly than either porcupine or hedgehog, to leave
+his scorebone awhile and come into my breast, and then let him go whither
+he pleases, or to the dogs, I could wish also that I might change my
+countenance, or that I had on the square cap and the cassock, for fear
+some or other should impeach me of theft as if I had privily rifled our
+masters' desks in that I have got so much divinity. But it ought not to
+seem so strange if after so long and intimate an acquaintance and
+converse with them I have picked up somewhat; when as that fig-tree-god
+Priapus hearing his owner read certain Greek words took so much notice of
+them that he got them by heart, and that cock in Lucian by having lived
+long among men became at last a master of their language.
+
+But to the point under a fortunate direction. Ecclesiastes says in his
+first chapter, "The number of fools is infinite;" and when he calls it
+infinite, does he not seem to comprehend all men, unless it be some few
+whom yet 'tis a question whether any man ever saw? But more ingeniously
+does Jeremiah in his tenth chapter confess it, saying, "Every man is made
+a fool through his own wisdom;" attributing wisdom to God alone and
+leaving folly to all men else, and again, "Let not man glory in his
+wisdom." And why, good Jeremiah, would you not have a man glory in his
+wisdom? Because, he'll say, he has none at all. But to return to
+Ecclesiastes, who, when he cries out, "Vanity of vanities, all is
+vanity!" what other thoughts had he, do you believe, than that, as I said
+before, the life of man is nothing else but an interlude of folly? In
+which he has added one voice more to that justly received praise of
+Cicero's which I quoted before, viz., "All things are full of fools."
+Again, that wise preacher that said, "A fool changes as the moon, but a
+wise man is permanent as the sun," what else did he hint at in it but
+that all mankind are fools and the name of wise only proper to God? For
+by the moon interpreters understand human nature, and by the sun, God,
+the only fountain of light; with which agrees that which Christ himself
+in the Gospel denies, that anyone is to be called good but one, and that
+is God. And then if he is a fool that is not wise, and every good man
+according to the Stoics is a wise man, it is no wonder if all mankind be
+concluded under folly. Again Solomon, Chapter 15, "Foolishness," says he,
+"is joy to the fool," thereby plainly confessing that without folly there
+is no pleasure in life. To which is pertinent that other, "He that
+increases knowledge, increases grief; and in much understanding there is
+much indignation." And does he not plainly confess as much, Chapter 7,
+"The heart of the wise is where sadness is, but the heart of fools
+follows mirth"? by which you see, he thought it not enough to have
+learned wisdom without he had added the knowledge of me also. And if you
+will not believe me, take his own words, Chapter 1, "I gave my heart to
+know wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly." Where, by the way, 'tis
+worth your remark that he intended me somewhat extraordinary that he
+named me last. A preacher wrote it, and this you know is the order among
+churchmen, that he that is first in dignity comes last in place, as
+mindful, no doubt, whatever they do in other things, herein at least to
+observe the evangelical precept.
+
+Besides, that folly is more excellent than wisdom the son of Sirach,
+whoever he was, clearly witnesses, Chapter 44, whose words, so help me,
+Hercules! I shall not once utter before you meet my induction with a
+suitable answer, according to the manner of those in Plato that dispute
+with Socrates. What things are more proper to be laid up with care, such
+as are rare and precious, or such as are common and of no account? Why do
+you give me no answer? Well, though you should dissemble, the Greek
+proverb will answer for you, "Foul water is thrown out of doors;" which,
+if any man shall be so ungracious as to condemn, let him know 'tis
+Aristotle's, the god of our masters. Is there any of you so very a fool
+as to leave jewels and gold in the street? In truth, I think not; in the
+most secret part of your house; nor is that enough; if there be any
+drawer in your iron chests more private than other, there you lay them;
+but dirt you throw out of doors. And therefore, if you so carefully lay
+up such things as you value and throw away what's vile and of no worth,
+is it not plain that wisdom, which he forbids a man to hide, is of less
+account than folly, which he commands him to cover? Take his own words,
+"Better is the man that hideth his folly than he that hideth his wisdom."
+Or what is that, when he attributes an upright mind without craft or
+malice to a fool, when a wise man the while thinks no man like himself?
+For so I understand that in his tenth chapter, "A fool walking by the
+way, being a fool himself, supposes all men to be fools like him." And is
+it not a sign of great integrity to esteem every man as good as himself,
+and when there is no one that leans not too much to other way, to be so
+frank yet as to divide his praises with another? Nor was this great king
+ashamed of the name when he says of himself that he is more foolish than
+any man. Nor did Paul, that great doctor of the Gentiles, writing to the
+Corinthians, unwillingly acknowledge it; "I speak," says he, "like a
+fool. I am more." As if it could be any dishonor to excel in folly.
+
+But here I meet with a great noise of some that endeavor to peck out the
+crows' eyes; that is, to blind the doctors of our times and smoke out
+their eyes with new annotations; among whom my friend Erasmus, whom for
+honor's sake I often mention, deserves if not the first place yet
+certainly the second. O most foolish instance, they cry, and well
+becoming Folly herself! The apostle's meaning was wide enough from what
+you dream; for he spoke it not in this sense, that he would have them
+believe him a greater fool than the rest, but when he had said, "They are
+ministers of Christ, the same am I," and by way of boasting herein had
+equaled himself with to others, he added this by way of correction or
+checking himself, "I am more," as meaning that he was not only equal to
+the rest of the apostles in the work of the Gospel, but somewhat
+superior. And therefore, while he would have this received as a truth,
+lest nevertheless it might not relish their ears as being spoken with too
+much arrogance, he foreshortened his argument with the vizard of folly,
+"I speak like a fool," because he knew it was the prerogative of fools to
+speak what they like, and that too without offense. Whatever he thought
+when he wrote this, I leave it to them to discuss; for my own part, I
+follow those fat, fleshy, and vulgarly approved doctors, with whom, by
+Jupiter! a great part of the learned had rather err than follow them that
+understand the tongues, though they are never so much in the right. Not
+any of them make greater account of those smatterers at Greek than if
+they were daws. Especially when a no small professor, whose name I
+wittingly conceal lest those choughs should chatter at me that Greek
+proverb I have so often mentioned, "an ass at a harp," discoursing
+magisterially and theologically on this text, "I speak as a fool, I am
+more," drew a new thesis; and, which without the height of logic he could
+never have done, made this new subdivision--for I'll give you his own
+words, not only in form but matter also--"I speak like a fool," that is,
+if you look upon me as a fool for comparing myself with those false
+apostles, I shall seem yet a greater fool by esteeming myself before
+them; though the same person a little after, as forgetting himself, runs
+off to another matter.
+
+But why do I thus staggeringly defend myself with one single instance? As
+if it were not the common privilege of divines to stretch heaven, that is
+Holy Writ, like a cheverel; and when there are many things in St. Paul
+that thwart themselves, which yet in their proper place do well enough if
+there be any credit to be given to St. Jerome that was master of five
+tongues. Such was that of his at Athens when having casually espied the
+inscription of that altar, he wrested it into an argument to prove the
+Christian faith, and leaving out all the other words because they made
+against him, took notice only of the two last, viz., "To the unknown
+God;" and those too not without some alteration, for the whole
+inscription was thus: "To the Gods of Asia, Europe, and Africa; To the
+unknown and strange Gods." And according to his example do the sons of
+the prophets, who, forcing out here and there four or five expressions
+and if need be corrupting the sense, wrest it to their own purpose;
+though what goes before and follows after make nothing to the matter in
+hand, nay, be quite against it. Which yet they do with so happy an
+impudence that oftentimes the civilians envy them that faculty.
+
+For what is it in a manner they may not hope for success in, when this
+great doctor (I had almost bolted out his name, but that I once again
+stand in fear of the Greek proverb) has made a construction on an
+expression of Luke, so agreeable to the mind of Christ as are fire and
+water to one another. For when the last point of danger was at hand, at
+which time retainers and dependents are wont in a more special manner to
+attend their protectors, to examine what strength they have, and prepare
+for the encounter, Christ, intending to take out of his disciples' minds
+all trust and confidence in such like defense, demands of them whether
+they wanted anything when he sent them forth so unprovided for a journey
+that they had neither shoes to defend their feet from the injuries of
+stones and briars nor the provision of a scrip to preserve them from
+hunger. And when they had denied that they wanted anything, he adds, "But
+now, he that hath a bag, let him take it, and likewise a scrip; and he
+that hath none, let him sell his coat and buy a sword." And now when the
+sum of all that Christ taught pressed only meekness, suffering, and
+contempt of life, who does not clearly perceive what he means in this
+place? to wit, that he might the more disarm his ministers, that
+neglecting not only shoes and scrip but throwing away their very coat,
+they might, being in a manner naked, the more readily and with less
+hindrance take in hand the work of the Gospel, and provide themselves of
+nothing but a sword, not such as thieves and murderers go up and down
+with, but the sword of the spirit that pierces the most inward parts, and
+so cuts off as it were at one blow all earthly affections, that they mind
+nothing but their duty to God. But see, I pray, whither this famous
+theologian wrests it. By the sword he interprets defense against
+persecution, and by the bag sufficient provision to carry it on. As if
+Christ having altered his mind, in that he sent out his disciples not so
+royally attended as he should have done, repented himself of his former
+instructions: or as forgetting that he had said, "Blessed are ye when ye
+are evil spoken of, despised, and persecuted, etc.," and forbade them to
+resist evil; for that the meek in spirit, not the proud, are blessed: or,
+lest remembering, I say, that he had compared them to sparrows and
+lilies, thereby minding them what small care they should take for the
+things of this life, was so far now from having them go forth without a
+sword that he commanded them to get one, though with the sale of their
+coat, and had rather they should go naked than want a brawling-iron by
+their sides. And to this, as under the word "sword" he conceives to be
+comprehended whatever appertains to the repelling of injuries, so under
+that of "scrip" he takes in whatever is necessary to the support of life.
+And so does this deep interpreter of the divine meaning bring forth the
+apostles to preach the doctrine of a crucified Christ, but furnished at
+all points with lances, slings, quarterstaffs, and bombards; lading them
+also with bag and baggage, lest perhaps it might not be lawful for them
+to leave their inn unless they were empty and fasting. Nor does he take
+the least notice of this, that he so willed the sword to be bought,
+reprehends it a little after and commands it to be sheathed; and that it
+was never heard that the apostles ever used or swords or bucklers against
+the Gentiles, though 'tis likely they had done it, if Christ had ever
+intended, as this doctor interprets.
+
+There is another, too, whose name out of respect I pass by, a man of no
+small repute, who from those tents which Habakkuk mentions, "The tents of
+the land of Midian shall tremble," drew this exposition, that it was
+prophesied of the skin of Saint Bartholomew who was flayed alive. And
+why, forsooth, but because those tents were covered with skins? I was
+lately myself at a theological dispute, for I am often there, where when
+one was demanding what authority there was in Holy Writ that commands
+heretics to be convinced by fire rather than reclaimed by argument; a
+crabbed old fellow, and one whose supercilious gravity spoke him at least
+a doctor, answered in a great fume that Saint Paul had decreed it, who
+said, "Reject him that is a heretic, after once or twice admonition." And
+when he had sundry times, one after another, thundered out the same
+thing, and most men wondered what ailed the man, at last he explained it
+thus, making two words of one. "A heretic must be put to death." Some
+laughed, and yet there wanted not others to whom this exposition seemed
+plainly theological; which, when some, though those very few, opposed,
+they cut off the dispute, as we say, with a hatchet, and the credit of so
+uncontrollable an author. "Pray conceive me," said he, "it is written,
+'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' But every heretic bewitches the
+people; therefore, etc." And now, as many as were present admired the
+man's wit, and consequently submitted to his decision of the question.
+Nor came it into any of their heads that that law concerned only
+fortunetellers, enchanters, and magicians, whom the Hebrews call in their
+tongue "Mecaschephim," witches or sorcerers: for otherwise, perhaps,
+by the same reason it might as well have extended to fornication
+and drunkenness.
+
+But I foolishly run on in these matters, though yet there are so many of
+them that neither Chrysippus' nor Didymus' volumes are large enough to
+contain them. I would only desire you to consider this, that if so great
+doctors may be allowed this liberty, you may the more reasonably pardon
+even me also, a raw, effeminate divine, if I quote not everything so
+exactly as I should. And so at last I return to Paul. "Ye willingly,"
+says he, "suffer my foolishness," and again, "Take me as a fool," and
+further, "I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly," and
+in another place, "We are fools for Christ's sake." You have heard from
+how great an author how great praises of folly; and to what other end,
+but that without doubt he looked upon it as that one thing both necessary
+and profitable. "If anyone among ye," says he, "seem to be wise, let him
+be a fool that he may be wise." And in Luke, Jesus called those two
+disciples with whom he joined himself upon the way, "fools." Nor can I
+give you any reason why it should seem so strange when Saint Paul imputes
+a kind of folly even to God himself. "The foolishness of God," says he,
+"is wiser than men." Though yet I must confess that origin upon the place
+denies that this foolishness may be resembled to the uncertain judgment
+of men; of which kind is, that "the preaching of the cross is to them
+that perish foolishness."
+
+But why am I so careful to no purpose that I thus run on to prove my
+matter by so many testimonies? when in those mystical Psalms Christ
+speaking to the Father says openly, "Thou knowest my foolishness." Nor is
+it without ground that fools are so acceptable to God. The reason perhaps
+may be this, that as princes carry a suspicious eye upon those that are
+over-wise, and consequently hate them--as Caesar did Brutus and Cassius,
+when he feared not in the least drunken Antony; so Nero, Seneca; and
+Dionysius, Plato--and on the contrary are delighted in those blunter and
+unlabored wits, in like manner Christ ever abhors and condemns those wise
+men and such as put confidence in their own wisdom. And this Paul makes
+clearly out when he said, "God hath chosen the foolish things of this
+world," as well knowing it had been impossible to have reformed it by
+wisdom. Which also he sufficiently declares himself, crying out by the
+mouth of his prophet, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and cast
+away the understanding of the prudent."
+
+And again, when Christ gives Him thanks that He had concealed the mystery
+of salvation from the wise, but revealed it to babes and sucklings, that
+is to say, fools. For the Greek word for babes is fools, which he opposes
+to the word wise men. To this appertains that throughout the Gospel you
+find him ever accusing the Scribes and Pharisees and doctors of the law,
+but diligently defending the ignorant multitude (for what other is that
+"Woe to ye Scribes and Pharisees" than woe to you, you wise men?), but
+seems chiefly delighted in little children, women, and fishers. Besides,
+among brute beasts he is best pleased with those that have least in them
+of the foxes' subtlety. And therefore he chose rather to ride upon an ass
+when, if he had pleased, he might have bestrode the lion without danger.
+And the Holy Ghost came down in the shape of a dove, not of an eagle or
+kite. Add to this that in Scripture there is frequent mention of harts,
+hinds, and lambs; and such as are destined to eternal life are called
+sheep, than which creature there is not anything more foolish, if we may
+believe that proverb of Aristotle "sheepish manners," which he tells us
+is taken from the foolishness of that creature and is used to be applied
+to dull-headed people and lack-wits. And yet Christ professes to be the
+shepherd of this flock and is himself delighted with the name of a lamb;
+according to Saint John, "Behold the Lamb of God!" Of which also there is
+much mention in the Revelation. And what does all this drive at, but that
+all mankind are fools--nay, even the very best?
+
+And Christ himself, that he might the better relieve this folly, being
+the wisdom of the Father, yet in some manner became a fool when taking
+upon him the nature of man, he was found in shape as a man; as in like
+manner he was made sin that he might heal sinners. Nor did he work this
+cure any other way than by the foolishness of the cross and a company of
+fat apostles, not much better, to whom also he carefully recommended
+folly but gave them a caution against wisdom and drew them together by
+the example of little children, lilies, mustard-seed, and sparrows,
+things senseless and inconsiderable, living only by the dictates of
+nature and without either craft or care. Besides, when he forbade them to
+be troubled about what they should say before governors and straightly
+charged them not to inquire after times and seasons, to wit, that they
+might not trust to their own wisdom but wholly depend on him. And to the
+same purpose is it that that great Architect of the World, God, gave man
+an injunction against his eating of the Tree of Knowledge, as if
+knowledge were the bane of happiness; according to which also, St. Paul
+disallows it as puffing up and destructive; whence also St. Bernard seems
+in my opinion to follow when he interprets that mountain whereon Lucifer
+had fixed his habitation to be the mountain of knowledge.
+
+Nor perhaps ought I to omit this other argument, that Folly is so
+gracious above that her errors are only pardoned, those of wise men
+never. Whence it is that they that ask forgiveness, though they offend
+never so wittingly, cloak it yet with the excuse of folly. So Aaron, in
+Numbers, if I mistake not the book, when he sues unto Moses concerning
+his sister's leprosy, "I beseech thee, my Lord, not to lay this sin upon
+us, which we have foolishly committed." So Saul makes his excuse of
+David, "For behold," says he, "I did it foolishly." And again, David
+himself thus sweetens God, "And therefore I beseech thee, O Lord, to take
+away the trespass of thy servant, for I have done foolishly," as if he
+knew there was no pardon to be obtained unless he had colored his offense
+with folly and ignorance. And stronger is that of Christ upon the cross
+when he prayed for his enemies, "Father, forgive them," nor does he cover
+their crime with any other excuse than that of unwittingness--because,
+says he, "they know not what they do." In like manner Paul, writing to
+Timothy, "But therefore I obtained mercy, for that I did it ignorantly
+through unbelief." And what is the meaning of "I did it ignorantly" but
+that I did it out of folly, not malice? And what of "Therefore I received
+mercy" but that I had not obtained it had I not been made more allowable
+through the covert of folly? For us also makes that mystical Psalmist,
+though I remembered it not in its right place, "Remember not the sins of
+my youth nor my ignorances." You see what two things he pretends, to wit,
+youth, whose companion I ever am, and ignorances, and that in the plural
+number, a number of multitude, whereby we are to understand that there
+was no small company of them.
+
+But not to run too far in that which is infinite. To speak briefly, all
+Christian religion seems to have a kind of alliance with folly and in no
+respect to have any accord with wisdom. Of which if you expect proofs,
+consider first that boys, old men, women, and fools are more delighted
+with religious and sacred things than others, and to that purpose are
+ever next the altars; and this they do by mere impulse of nature. And in
+the next place, you see that those first founders of it were plain,
+simple persons and most bitter enemies of learning. Lastly there are no
+sort of fools seem more out of the way than are these whom the zeal of
+Christian religion has once swallowed up; so that they waste their
+estates, neglect injuries, suffer themselves to be cheated, put no
+difference between friends and enemies, abhor pleasure, are crammed with
+poverty, watchings, tears, labors, reproaches, loathe life, and wish
+death above all things; in short, they seem senseless to common
+understanding, as if their minds lived elsewhere and not in their own
+bodies; which, what else is it than to be mad? For which reason you must
+not think it so strange if the apostles seemed to be drunk with new wine,
+and if Paul appeared to Festus to be mad.
+
+But now, having once gotten on the lion's skin, go to, and I'll show you
+that this happiness of Christians, which they pursue with so much toil,
+is nothing else but a kind of madness and folly; far be it that my words
+should give any offense, rather consider my matter. And first, the
+Christians and Platonists do as good as agree in this, that the soul is
+plunged and fettered in the prison of the body, by the grossness of which
+it is so tied up and hindered that it cannot take a view of or enjoy
+things as they truly are; and for that cause their master defines
+philosophy to be a contemplation of death, because it takes off the mind
+from visible and corporeal objects, than which death does no more. And
+therefore, as long as the soul uses the organs of the body in that right
+manner it ought, so long it is said to be in good state and condition;
+but when, having broken its fetters, it endeavors to get loose and
+assays, as it were, a flight out of that prison that holds it in, they
+call it madness; and if this happen through any distemper or
+indisposition of the organs, then, by the common consent of every man,
+'tis downright madness. And yet we see such kind of men foretell things
+to come, understand tongues and letters they never learned before, and
+seem, as it were, big with a kind of divinity. Nor is it to be doubted
+but that it proceeds from hence, that the mind, being somewhat at liberty
+from the infection of the body, begins to put forth itself in its native
+vigor. And I conceive 'tis from the same cause that the like often
+happens to sick men a little before their death, that they discourse in
+strain above mortality as if they were inspired. Again, if this happens
+upon the score of religion, though perhaps it may not be the same kind of
+madness, yet 'tis so near it that a great many men would judge it no
+better, especially when a few inconsiderable people shall differ from the
+rest of the world in the whole course of their life. And therefore it
+fares with them as, according to the fiction of Plato, happens to those
+that being cooped up in a cave stand gaping with admiration at the
+shadows of things; and that fugitive who, having broke from them and
+returning to them again, told them he had seen things truly as they were,
+and that they were the most mistaken in believing there was nothing but
+pitiful shadows. For as this wise man pitied and bewailed their palpable
+madness that were possessed with so gross an error, so they in return
+laughed at him as a doting fool and cast him out of their company. In
+like manner the common sort of men chiefly admire those things that are
+most corporeal and almost believe there is nothing beyond them. Whereas
+on the contrary, these devout persons, by how much the nearer anything
+concerns the body, by so much more they neglect it and are wholly hurried
+away with the contemplation of things invisible. For the one give the
+first place to riches, the next to their corporeal pleasures, leaving the
+last place to their soul, which yet most of them do scarce believe,
+because they can't see it with their eyes. On the contrary, the others
+first rely wholly on God, the most unchangeable of all things; and next
+him, yet on this that comes nearest him, they bestow the second on their
+soul; and lastly, for their body, they neglect that care and condemn and
+fly money as superfluity that may be well spared; or if they are forced
+to meddle with any of these things, they do it carelessly and much
+against their wills, having as if they had it not, and possessing as if
+they possessed it not.
+
+There are also in each several things several degrees wherein they
+disagree among themselves. And first as to the senses, though all of them
+have more or less affinity with the body, yet of these some are more
+gross and blockish, as tasting, hearing, seeing, smelling, touching; some
+more removed from the body, as memory, intellect, and the will. And
+therefore to which of these the mind applies itself, in that lies its
+force. But holy men, because the whole bent of their minds is taken up
+with those things that are most repugnant to these grosser senses, they
+seem brutish and stupid in the common use of them. Whereas on the
+contrary, the ordinary sort of people are best at these, and can do least
+at the other; from whence it is, as we have heard, that some of these
+holy men have by mistake drunk oil for wine. Again, in the affections of
+the mind, some have a greater commerce with the body than others, as
+lust, desire of meat and sleep, anger, pride, envy; with which holy men
+are at irreconcilable enmity, and contrary, the common people think
+there's no living without them. And lastly there are certain middle kind
+of affections, and as it were natural to every man, as the love of one's
+country, children, parents, friends, and to which the common people
+attribute no small matter; whereas the other strive to pluck them out of
+their mind: unless insomuch as they arrive to that highest part of the
+soul, that they love their parents not as parents--for what did they get
+but the body? though yet we owe it to God, not them--but as good men or
+women and in whom shines the image of that highest wisdom which alone
+they call the chiefest good, and out of which, they say, there is nothing
+to be beloved or desired.
+
+And by the same rule do they measure all things else, so that they make
+less account of whatever is visible, unless it be altogether
+contemptible, than of those things which they cannot see. But they say
+that in Sacraments and other religious duties there is both body and
+spirit. As in fasting they count it not enough for a man to abstain from
+eating, which the common people take for an absolute fast, unless there
+be also a lessening of his depraved affections: as that he be less angry,
+less proud, than he was wont, that the spirit, being less clogged with
+its bodily weight, may be the more intent upon heavenly things. In like
+manner, in the Eucharist, though, say they, it is not to be esteemed the
+less that 'tis administered with ceremonies, yet of itself 'tis of little
+effect, if not hurtful, unless that which is spiritual be added to it, to
+wit, that which is represented under those visible signs. Now the death
+of Christ is represented by it, which all men, vanquishing, abolishing,
+and, as it were, burying their carnal affections, ought to express in
+their lives and conversations that they may grow up to a newness of life
+and be one with him and the same one among another. This a holy man does,
+and in this is his only meditation. Whereas on the contrary, the common
+people think there's no more in that sacrifice than to be present at the
+altar and crowd next it, to have a noise of words and look upon the
+ceremonies. Nor in this alone, which we only proposed by way of example,
+but in all his life, and without hypocrisy, does a holy man fly those
+things that have any alliance with the body and is wholly ravished with
+things eternal, invisible, and spiritual. For which cause there's so
+great contrarity of opinion between them, and that too in everything,
+that each party thinks the other out of their wits; though that
+character, in my judgment, better agrees with those holy men than the
+common people: which yet will be more clear if, as I promised, I briefly
+show you that that great reward they so much fancy is nothing else but a
+kind of madness.
+
+And therefore suppose that Plato dreamed of somewhat like it when he
+called the madness of lovers the most happy condition of all others. For
+he that's violently in love lives not in his own body but in the thing he
+loves; and by how much the farther he runs from himself into another, by
+so much the greater is his pleasure. And then, when the mind strives to
+rove from its body and does not rightly use its own organs, without doubt
+you may say 'tis downright madness and not be mistaken, or otherwise
+what's the meaning of those common sayings, "He does not dwell at home,"
+"Come to yourself," "He's his own man again"? Besides, the more perfect
+and true his love is, the more pleasant is his madness. And therefore,
+what is that life hereafter, after which these holy minds so pantingly
+breathe, like to be? To wit, the spirit shall swallow up the body, as
+conqueror and more durable; and this it shall do with the greater ease
+because heretofore, in its lifetime, it had cleansed and thinned it into
+such another nothing as itself. And then the spirit again shall be
+wonderfully swallowed up by the highest mind, as being more powerful than
+infinite parts; so that the whole man is to be out of himself nor to be
+otherwise happy in any respect, but that being stripped of himself, he
+shall participate of somewhat ineffable from that chiefest good that
+draws all things into itself. And this happiness though 'tis only then
+perfected when souls being joined to their former bodies shall be made
+immortal, yet forasmuch as the life of holy men is nothing but a
+continued meditation and, as it were, shadow of that life, it so happens
+that at length they have some taste or relish of it; which, though it be
+but as the smallest drop in comparison of that fountain of eternal
+happiness, yet it far surpasses all worldly delight, though all the
+pleasures of all mankind were all joined together. So much better are
+things spiritual than things corporeal, and things invisible than things
+visible; which doubtless is that which the prophet promises: "The eye
+hath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of
+man to consider what God has provided for them that love Him." And this
+is that Mary's better part which is not taken away by change of life,
+but perfected.
+
+And therefore they that are sensible of it, and few there are to whom
+this happens, suffer a kind of somewhat little differing from madness;
+for they utter many things that do not hang together, and that too not
+after the manner of men but make a kind of sound which they neither heed
+themselves, nor is it understood by others, and change the whole figure
+of their countenance, one while jocund, another while dejected, now
+weeping, then laughing, and again sighing. And when they come to
+themselves, tell you they know not where they have been, whether in the
+body or out of the body, or sleeping; nor do they remember what they have
+heard, seen, spoken, or done, and only know this, as it were in a mist or
+dream, that they were the most happy while they were so out of their
+wits. And therefore they are sorry they are come to themselves again and
+desire nothing more than this kind of madness, to be perpetually mad. And
+this is a small taste of that future happiness.
+
+But I forget myself and run beyond my bounds. Though yet, if I shall seem
+to have spoken anything more boldly or impertinently than I ought, be
+pleased to consider that not only Folly but a woman said it; remembering
+in the meantime that Greek proverb, "Sometimes a fool may speak a word in
+season," unless perhaps you expect an epilogue, but give me leave to tell
+you you are mistaken if you think I remember anything of what I have
+said, having foolishly bolted out such a hodgepodge of words. 'Tis an old
+proverb, "I hate one that remembers what's done over the cup." This is a
+new one of my own making: I hate a man that remembers what he hears.
+Wherefore farewell, clap your hands, live and drink lustily, my most
+excellent disciples of Folly.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Praise of Folly, by Desiderius Erasmus
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRAISE OF FOLLY ***
+
+This file should be named 7efly10.txt or 7efly10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7efly11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7efly10a.txt
+
+Produced by Robert Shimmin and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
diff --git a/old/7efly10.zip b/old/7efly10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d44224e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/7efly10.zip
diff --git a/old/8efly10.txt b/old/8efly10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b82b637
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/8efly10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3420 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Praise of Folly, by Desiderius Erasmus
+#2 in our series by Desiderius Erasmus
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Praise of Folly
+
+Author: Desiderius Erasmus
+
+Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9371]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on September 26, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRAISE OF FOLLY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Shimmin and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+                           DESIDERIUS ERASMUS
+
+                          THE PRAISE OF FOLLY
+
+
+
+                        Translated by John Wilson
+                                  1668
+
+
+
+                          ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM
+                              to his friend
+                          THOMAS MORE, health:
+
+
+As I was coming awhile since out of Italy for England, that I might not
+waste all that time I was to sit on horseback in foolish and illiterate
+fables, I chose rather one while to revolve with myself something of our
+common studies, and other while to enjoy the remembrance of my friends,
+of whom I left here some no less learned than pleasant. Among these you,
+my More, came first in my mind, whose memory, though absent yourself,
+gives me such delight in my absence, as when present with you I ever
+found in your company; than which, let me perish if in all my life I ever
+met with anything more delectable. And therefore, being satisfied that
+something was to be done, and that that time was no wise proper for any
+serious matter, I resolved to make some sport with the praise of folly.
+But who the devil put that in your head? you'll say. The first thing was
+your surname of More, which comes so near the word _Moriae_ (folly) as
+you are far from the thing. And that you are so, all the world will clear
+you. In the next place, I conceived this exercise of wit would not be
+least approved by you; inasmuch as you are wont to be delighted with such
+kind of mirth, that is to say, neither unlearned, if I am not mistaken,
+nor altogether insipid, and in the whole course of your life have played
+the part of a Democritus. And though such is the excellence of your
+judgment that it was ever contrary to that of the people's, yet such is
+your incredible affability and sweetness of temper that you both can and
+delight to carry yourself to all men a man of all hours. Wherefore you
+will not only with good will accept this small declamation, but take upon
+you the defense of it, for as much as being dedicated to you, it is now
+no longer mine but yours. But perhaps there will not be wanting some
+wranglers that may cavil and charge me, partly that these toys are
+lighter than may become a divine, and partly more biting than may beseem
+the modesty of a Christian, and consequently exclaim that I resemble the
+ancient comedy, or another Lucian, and snarl at everything. But I would
+have them whom the lightness or foolery of the argument may offend to
+consider that mine is not the first of this kind, but the same thing that
+has been often practiced even by great authors: when Homer, so many ages
+since, did the like with the battle of frogs and mice; Virgil, with the
+gnat and puddings; Ovid, with the nut; when Polycrates and his corrector
+Isocrates extolled tyranny; Glauco, injustice; Favorinus, deformity and
+the quartan ague; Synescius, baldness; Lucian, the fly and flattery; when
+Seneca made such sport with Claudius' canonizations; Plutarch, with his
+dialogue between Ulysses and Gryllus; Lucian and Apuleius, with the ass;
+and some other, I know not who, with the hog that made his last will and
+testament, of which also even St. Jerome makes mention. And therefore if
+they please, let them suppose I played at tables for my diversion, or if
+they had rather have it so, that I rode on a hobbyhorse. For what
+injustice is it that when we allow every course of life its recreation,
+that study only should have none? Especially when such toys are not
+without their serious matter, and foolery is so handled that the reader
+that is not altogether thick-skulled may reap more benefit from it than
+from some men's crabbish and specious arguments. As when one, with long
+study and great pains, patches many pieces together on the praise of
+rhetoric or philosophy; another makes a panegyric to a prince; another
+encourages him to a war against the Turks; another tells you what will
+become of the world after himself is dead; and another finds out some new
+device for the better ordering of goat's wool: for as nothing is more
+trifling than to treat of serious matters triflingly, so nothing carries
+a better grace than so to discourse of trifles as a man may seem to have
+intended them least. For my own part, let other men judge of what I have
+written; though yet, unless an overweening opinion of myself may have
+made me blind in my own cause, I have praised folly, but not altogether
+foolishly. And now to say somewhat to that other cavil, of biting. This
+liberty was ever permitted to all men's wits, to make their smart, witty
+reflections on the common errors of mankind, and that too without
+offense, as long as this liberty does not run into licentiousness; which
+makes me the more admire the tender ears of the men of this age, that can
+away with solemn titles. No, you'll meet with some so preposterously
+religious that they will sooner endure the broadest scoffs even against
+Christ himself than hear the Pope or a prince be touched in the least,
+especially if it be anything that concerns their profit; whereas he that
+so taxes the lives of men, without naming anyone in particular, whither,
+I pray, may he be said to bite, or rather to teach and admonish? Or
+otherwise, I beseech you, under how many notions do I tax myself?
+Besides, he that spares no sort of men cannot be said to be angry with
+anyone in particular, but the vices of all. And therefore, if there shall
+happen to be anyone that shall say he is hit, he will but discover either
+his guilt or fear. Saint Jerome sported in this kind with more freedom
+and greater sharpness, not sparing sometimes men's very name. But I,
+besides that I have wholly avoided it, I have so moderated my style that
+the understanding reader will easily perceive my endeavors herein were
+rather to make mirth than bite. Nor have I, after the example of Juvenal,
+raked up that forgotten sink of filth and ribaldry, but laid before you
+things rather ridiculous than dishonest. And now, if there be anyone that
+is yet dissatisfied, let him at least remember that it is no dishonor to
+be discommended by Folly; and having brought her in speaking, it was but
+fit that I kept up the character of the person. But why do I run over
+these things to you, a person so excellent an advocate that no man better
+defends his client, though the cause many times be none of the best?
+Farewell, my best disputant More, and stoutly defend your _Moriae_.
+
+From the country,
+the 5th of the Ides of June.
+
+
+
+
+                          THE PRAISE OF FOLLY
+
+
+                     An oration, of feigned matter,
+                   spoken by Folly in her own person
+
+
+At what rate soever the world talks of me (for I am not ignorant what an
+ill report Folly has got, even among the most foolish), yet that I am
+that she, that only she, whose deity recreates both gods and men, even
+this is a sufficient argument, that I no sooner stepped up to speak to
+this full assembly than all your faces put on a kind of new and unwonted
+pleasantness. So suddenly have you cleared your brows, and with so frolic
+and hearty a laughter given me your applause, that in truth as many of
+you as I behold on every side of me seem to me no less than Homer's gods
+drunk with nectar and nepenthe; whereas before, you sat as lumpish and
+pensive as if you had come from consulting an oracle. And as it usually
+happens when the sun begins to show his beams, or when after a sharp
+winter the spring breathes afresh on the earth, all things immediately
+get a new face, new color, and recover as it were a certain kind of youth
+again: in like manner, by but beholding me you have in an instant gotten
+another kind of countenance; and so what the otherwise great rhetoricians
+with their tedious and long-studied orations can hardly effect, to wit,
+to remove the trouble of the mind, I have done it at once with my
+single look.
+
+But if you ask me why I appear before you in this strange dress, be
+pleased to lend me your ears, and I'll tell you; not those ears, I mean,
+you carry to church, but abroad with you, such as you are wont to prick
+up to jugglers, fools, and buffoons, and such as our friend Midas once
+gave to Pan. For I am disposed awhile to play the sophist with you; not
+of their sort who nowadays boozle young men's heads with certain empty
+notions and curious trifles, yet teach them nothing but a more than
+womanish obstinacy of scolding: but I'll imitate those ancients who, that
+they might the better avoid that infamous appellation of _sophi_ or
+_wise_, chose rather to be called sophists. Their business was to
+celebrate the praises of the gods and valiant men. And the like encomium
+shall you hear from me, but neither of Hercules nor Solon, but my own
+dear self, that is to say, Folly. Nor do I esteem a rush that call it a
+foolish and insolent thing to praise one's self. Be it as foolish as they
+would make it, so they confess it proper: and what can be more than that
+Folly be her own trumpet? For who can set me out better than myself,
+unless perhaps I could be better known to another than to myself? Though
+yet I think it somewhat more modest than the general practice of our
+nobles and wise men who, throwing away all shame, hire some flattering
+orator or lying poet from whose mouth they may hear their praises, that
+is to say, mere lies; and yet, composing themselves with a seeming
+modesty, spread out their peacock's plumes and erect their crests, while
+this impudent flatterer equals a man of nothing to the gods and proposes
+him as an absolute pattern of all virtue that's wholly a stranger to it,
+sets out a pitiful jay in other's feathers, washes the blackamoor white,
+and lastly swells a gnat to an elephant. In short, I will follow that old
+proverb that says, "He may lawfully praise himself that lives far from
+neighbors." Though, by the way, I cannot but wonder at the ingratitude,
+shall I say, or negligence of men who, notwithstanding they honor me in
+the first place and are willing enough to confess my bounty, yet not one
+of them for these so many ages has there been who in some thankful
+oration has set out the praises of Folly; when yet there has not wanted
+them whose elaborate endeavors have extolled tyrants, agues, flies,
+baldness, and such other pests of nature, to their own loss of both time
+and sleep. And now you shall hear from me a plain extemporary speech, but
+so much the truer. Nor would I have you think it like the rest of
+orators, made for the ostentation of wit; for these, as you know, when
+they have been beating their heads some thirty years about an oration and
+at last perhaps produce somewhat that was never their own, shall yet
+swear they composed it in three days, and that too for diversion: whereas
+I ever liked it best to speak whatever came first out.
+
+But let none of you expect from me that after the manner of rhetoricians
+I should go about to define what I am, much less use any division; for I
+hold it equally unlucky to circumscribe her whose deity is universal, or
+make the least division in that worship about which everything is so
+generally agreed. Or to what purpose, think you, should I describe myself
+when I am here present before you, and you behold me speaking? For I am,
+as you see, that true and only giver of wealth whom the Greeks call
+_Moria_, the Latins _Stultitia_, and our plain English _Folly_. Or what
+need was there to have said so much, as if my very looks were not
+sufficient to inform you who I am? Or as if any man, mistaking me for
+wisdom, could not at first sight convince himself by my face the true
+index of my mind? I am no counterfeit, nor do I carry one thing in my
+looks and another in my breast. No, I am in every respect so like myself
+that neither can they dissemble me who arrogate to themselves the
+appearance and title of wise men and walk like asses in scarlet hoods,
+though after all their hypocrisy Midas' ears will discover their master.
+A most ungrateful generation of men that, when they are wholly given up
+to my party, are yet publicly ashamed of the name, as taking it for a
+reproach; for which cause, since in truth they are _morotatoi_, fools,
+and yet would appear to the world to be wise men and Thales, we'll even
+call them _morosophous_, wise fools.
+
+Nor will it be amiss also to imitate the rhetoricians of our times, who
+think themselves in a manner gods if like horse leeches they can but
+appear to be double-tongued, and believe they have done a mighty act if
+in their Latin orations they can but shuffle in some ends of Greek like
+mosaic work, though altogether by head and shoulders and less to the
+purpose. And if they want hard words, they run over some worm-eaten
+manuscript and pick out half a dozen of the most old and obsolete to
+confound their reader, believing, no doubt, that they that understand
+their meaning will like it the better, and they that do not will admire
+it the more by how much the less they understand it. Nor is this way of
+ours of admiring what seems most foreign without its particular grace;
+for if there happen to be any more ambitious than others, they may give
+their applause with a smile, and, like the ass, shake their ears, that
+they may be thought to understand more than the rest of their neighbors.
+
+But to come to the purpose: I have given you my name, but what epithet
+shall I add? What but that of the most foolish? For by what more proper
+name can so great a goddess as Folly be known to her disciples? And
+because it is not alike known to all from what stock I am sprung, with
+the Muses' good leave I'll do my endeavor to satisfy you. But yet neither
+the first Chaos, Orcus, Saturn, or Japhet, nor any of those threadbare,
+musty gods were my father, but Plutus, Riches; that only he, that is, in
+spite of Hesiod, Homer, nay and Jupiter himself, _divum pater atque
+hominum rex_, the father of gods and men, at whose single beck, as
+heretofore, so at present, all things sacred and profane are turned
+topsy-turvy. According to whose pleasure war, peace, empire, counsels,
+judgments, assemblies, wedlocks, bargains, leagues, laws, arts, all
+things light or serious--I want breath--in short, all the public and
+private business of mankind is governed; without whose help all that herd
+of gods of the poets' making, and those few of the better sort of the
+rest, either would not be at all, or if they were, they would be but such
+as live at home and keep a poor house to themselves. And to whomsoever
+he's an enemy, 'tis not Pallas herself that can befriend him; as on the
+contrary he whom he favors may lead Jupiter and his thunder in a string.
+This is my father and in him I glory. Nor did he produce me from his
+brain, as Jupiter that sour and ill-looked Pallas; but of that lovely
+nymph called Youth, the most beautiful and galliard of all the rest. Nor
+was I, like that limping blacksmith, begot in the sad and irksome bonds
+of matrimony. Yet, mistake me not, 'twas not that blind and decrepit
+Plutus in Aristophanes that got me, but such as he was in his full
+strength and pride of youth; and not that only, but at such a time when
+he had been well heated with nectar, of which he had, at one of the
+banquets of the gods, taken a dose extraordinary.
+
+And as to the place of my birth, forasmuch as nowadays that is looked
+upon as a main point of nobility, it was neither, like Apollo's, in the
+floating Delos, nor Venus-like on the rolling sea, nor in any of blind
+Homer's as blind caves: but in the Fortunate Islands, where all things
+grew without plowing or sowing; where neither labor, nor old age, nor
+disease was ever heard of; and in whose fields neither daffodil, mallows,
+onions, beans, and such contemptible things would ever grow, but, on the
+contrary, rue, angelica, bugloss, marjoram, trefoils, roses, violets,
+lilies, and all the gardens of Adonis invite both your sight and your
+smelling. And being thus born, I did not begin the world, as other
+children are wont, with crying; but straight perched up and smiled on my
+mother. Nor do I envy to the great Jupiter the goat, his nurse, forasmuch
+as I was suckled by two jolly nymphs, to wit, Drunkenness, the daughter
+of Bacchus, and Ignorance, of Pan. And as for such my companions and
+followers as you perceive about me, if you have a mind to know who they
+are, you are not like to be the wiser for me, unless it be in Greek: this
+here, which you observe with that proud cast of her eye, is _Philantia_,
+Self-love; she with the smiling countenance, that is ever and anon
+clapping her hands, is _Kolakia_, Flattery; she that looks as if she were
+half asleep is _Lethe_, Oblivion; she that sits leaning on both elbows
+with her hands clutched together is _Misoponia_, Laziness; she with the
+garland on her head, and that smells so strong of perfumes, is _Hedone_,
+Pleasure; she with those staring eyes, moving here and there, is _Anoia_,
+Madness; she with the smooth skin and full pampered body is _Tryphe_,
+Wantonness; and, as to the two gods that you see with them, the one is
+_Komos_, Intemperance, the other _Eegretos hypnos_, Dead Sleep. These, I
+say, are my household servants, and by their faithful counsels I have
+subjected all things to my dominion and erected an empire over emperors
+themselves. Thus have you had my lineage, education, and companions.
+
+And now, lest I may seem to have taken upon me the name of goddess
+without cause, you shall in the next place understand how far my deity
+extends, and what advantage by it I have brought both to gods and men.
+For, if it was not unwisely said by somebody, that this only is to be a
+god, to help men; and if they are deservedly enrolled among the gods that
+first brought in corn and wine and such other things as are for the
+common good of mankind, why am not I of right the _alpha_, or first, of
+all the gods? who being but one, yet bestow all things on all men. For
+first, what is more sweet or more precious than life? And yet from whom
+can it more properly be said to come than from me? For neither the
+crab-favoured Pallas' spear nor the cloud-gathering Jupiter's shield
+either beget or propagate mankind; but even he himself, the father of
+gods and king of men at whose very beck the heavens shake, must lay by
+his forked thunder and those looks wherewith he conquered the giants
+and with which at pleasure he frightens the rest of the gods, and like
+a common stage player put on a disguise as often as he goes about that,
+which now and then he does, that is to say the getting of children: And
+the Stoics too, that conceive themselves next to the gods, yet show me
+one of them, nay the veriest bigot of the sect, and if he do not put off
+his beard, the badge of wisdom, though yet it be no more than what is
+common with him and goats; yet at least he must lay by his supercilious
+gravity, smooth his forehead, shake off his rigid principles, and for
+some time commit an act of folly and dotage. In fine, that wise man
+whoever he be, if he intends to have children, must have recourse to me.
+But tell me, I beseech you, what man is that would submit his neck to
+the noose of wedlock, if, as wise men should, he did but first truly
+weigh the inconvenience of the thing? Or what woman is there would ever
+go to it did she seriously consider either the peril of child-bearing or
+the trouble of bringing them up? So then, if you owe your beings to
+wedlock, you owe that wedlock to this my follower, Madness; and what
+you owe to me I have already told you. Again, she that has but once
+tried what it is, would she, do you think, make a second venture if it
+were not for my other companion, Oblivion? Nay, even Venus herself,
+notwithstanding whatever Lucretius has said, would not deny but that
+all her virtue were lame and fruitless without the help of my deity.
+For out of that little, odd, ridiculous May-game came the supercilious
+philosophers, in whose room have succeeded a kind of people the world
+calls monks, cardinals, priests, and the most holy popes. And lastly,
+all that rabble of the poets' gods, with which heaven is so thwacked
+and thronged, that though it be of so vast an extent, they are hardly
+able to crowd one by another.
+
+But I think it is a small matter that you thus owe your beginning of life
+to me, unless I also show you that whatever benefit you receive in the
+progress of it is of my gift likewise. For what other is this? Can that
+be called life where you take away pleasure? Oh! Do you like what I say?
+I knew none of you could have so little wit, or so much folly, or wisdom
+rather, as to be of any other opinion. For even the Stoics themselves
+that so severely cried down pleasure did but handsomely dissemble, and
+railed against it to the common people to no other end but that having
+discouraged them from it, they might the more plentifully enjoy it
+themselves. But tell me, by Jupiter, what part of man's life is that that
+is not sad, crabbed, unpleasant, insipid, troublesome, unless it be
+seasoned with pleasure, that is to say, folly? For the proof of which the
+never sufficiently praised Sophocles in that his happy elegy of us, "To
+know nothing is the only happiness," might be authority enough, but that
+I intend to take every particular by itself.
+
+And first, who knows not but a man's infancy is the merriest part of life
+to himself, and most acceptable to others? For what is that in them which
+we kiss, embrace, cherish, nay enemies succor, but this witchcraft of
+folly, which wise Nature did of purpose give them into the world with
+them that they might the more pleasantly pass over the toil of education,
+and as it were flatter the care and diligence of their nurses? And then
+for youth, which is in such reputation everywhere, how do all men favor
+it, study to advance it, and lend it their helping hand? And whence, I
+pray, all this grace? Whence but from me? by whose kindness, as it
+understands as little as may be, it is also for that reason the higher
+privileged from exceptions; and I am mistaken if, when it is grown up and
+by experience and discipline brought to savor something like man, if in
+the same instant that beauty does not fade, its liveliness decay, its
+pleasantness grow flat, and its briskness fail. And by how much the
+further it runs from me, by so much the less it lives, till it comes to
+the burden of old age, not only hateful to others, but to itself also.
+Which also were altogether insupportable did not I pity its condition, in
+being present with it, and, as the poets' gods were wont to assist such
+as were dying with some pleasant metamorphosis, help their decrepitness
+as much as in me lies by bringing them back to a second childhood, from
+whence they are not improperly called twice children. Which, if you ask
+me how I do it, I shall not be shy in the point. I bring them to our
+River Lethe (for its springhead rises in the Fortunate Islands, and that
+other of hell is but a brook in comparison), from which, as soon as they
+have drunk down a long forgetfulness, they wash away by degrees the
+perplexity of their minds, and so wax young again.
+
+But perhaps you'll say they are foolish and doting. Admit it; 'tis the
+very essence of childhood; as if to be such were not to be a fool, or
+that that condition had anything pleasant in it, but that it understood
+nothing. For who would not look upon that child as a prodigy that should
+have as much wisdom as a man?--according to that common proverb, "I do
+not like a child that is a man too soon." Or who would endure a converse
+or friendship with that old man who to so large an experience of things
+had joined an equal strength of mind and sharpness of judgment? And
+therefore for this reason it is that old age dotes; and that it does so,
+it is beholding to me. Yet, notwithstanding, is this dotard exempt from
+all those cares that distract a wise man; he is not the less pot
+companion, nor is he sensible of that burden of life which the more manly
+age finds enough to do to stand upright under it. And sometimes too, like
+Plautus' old man, he returns to his three letters, A.M.O., the most
+unhappy of all things living, if he rightly understood what he did in it.
+And yet, so much do I befriend him that I make him well received of his
+friends and no unpleasant companion; for as much as, according to Homer,
+Nestor's discourse was pleasanter than honey, whereas Achilles' was both
+bitter and malicious; and that of old men, as he has it in another place,
+florid. In which respect also they have this advantage of children, in
+that they want the only pleasure of the others' life, we'll suppose it
+prattling. Add to this that old men are more eagerly delighted with
+children, and they, again, with old men. "Like to like," quoted the Devil
+to the collier. For what difference between them, but that the one has
+more wrinkles and years upon his head than the other? Otherwise, the
+brightness of their hair, toothless mouth, weakness of body, love of
+mild, broken speech, chatting, toying, forgetfulness, inadvertency, and
+briefly, all other their actions agree in everything. And by how much the
+nearer they approach to this old age, by so much they grow backward into
+the likeness of children, until like them they pass from life to death,
+without any weariness of the one, or sense of the other.
+
+And now, let him that will compare the benefits they receive by me, the
+metamorphoses of the gods, of whom I shall not mention what they have
+done in their pettish humors but where they have been most favorable:
+turning one into a tree, another into a bird, a third into a grasshopper,
+serpent, or the like. As if there were any difference between perishing
+and being another thing! But I restore the same man to the best and
+happiest part of his life. And if men would but refrain from all commerce
+with wisdom and give up themselves to be governed by me, they should
+never know what it were to be old, but solace themselves with a perpetual
+youth. Do but observe our grim philosophers that are perpetually beating
+their brains on knotty subjects, and for the most part you'll find them
+grown old before they are scarcely young. And whence is it, but that
+their continual and restless thoughts insensibly prey upon their spirits
+and dry up their radical moisture? Whereas, on the contrary, my fat fools
+are as plump and round as a Westphalian hog, and never sensible of old
+age, unless perhaps, as sometimes it rarely happens, they come to be
+infected with wisdom, so hard a thing it is for a man to be happy in all
+things. And to this purpose is that no small testimony of the proverb,
+that says, "Folly is the only thing that keeps youth at a stay and old
+age afar off;" as it is verified in the Brabanders, of whom there goes
+this common saying, "That age, which is wont to render other men wiser,
+makes them the greater fools." And yet there is scarce any nation of a
+more jocund converse, or that is less sensible of the misery of old age,
+than they are. And to these, as in situation, so for manner of living,
+come nearest my friends the Hollanders. And why should I not call them
+mine, since they are so diligent observers of me that they are commonly
+called by my name?--of which they are so far from being ashamed, they
+rather pride themselves in it. Let the foolish world then be packing and
+seek out Medeas, Circes, Venuses, Auroras, and I know not what other
+fountains of restoring youth. I am sure I am the only person that both
+can, and have, made it good. 'Tis I alone that have that wonderful juice
+with which Memnon's daughter prolonged the youth of her grandfather
+Tithon. I am that Venus by whose favor Phaon became so young again that
+Sappho fell in love with him. Mine are those herbs, if yet there be any
+such, mine those charms, and mine that fountain that not only restores
+departed youth but, which is more desirable, preserves it perpetual. And
+if you all subscribe to this opinion, that nothing is better than youth
+or more execrable than age, I conceive you cannot but see how much you
+are indebted to me, that have retained so great a good and shut out so
+great an evil.
+
+But why do I altogether spend my breath in speaking of mortals? View
+heaven round, and let him that will reproach me with my name if he find
+any one of the gods that were not stinking and contemptible were he not
+made acceptable by my deity. Why is it that Bacchus is always a
+stripling, and bushy-haired? but because he is mad, and drunk, and spends
+his life in drinking, dancing, revels, and May games, not having so much
+as the least society with Pallas. And lastly, he is so far from desiring
+to be accounted wise that he delights to be worshiped with sports and
+gambols; nor is he displeased with the proverb that gave him the surname
+of fool, "A greater fool than Bacchus;" which name of his was changed to
+Morychus, for that sitting before the gates of his temple, the wanton
+country people were wont to bedaub him with new wine and figs. And of
+scoffs, what not, have not the ancient comedies thrown on him? O foolish
+god, say they, and worthy to be born as you were of your father's thigh!
+And yet, who had not rather be your fool and sot, always merry, ever
+young, and making sport for other people, than either Homer's Jupiter
+with his crooked counsels, terrible to everyone; or old Pan with his
+hubbubs; or smutty Vulcan half covered with cinders; or even Pallas
+herself, so dreadful with her Gorgon's head and spear and a countenance
+like bullbeef? Why is Cupid always portrayed like a boy, but because he
+is a very wag and can neither do nor so much as think of anything sober?
+Why Venus ever in her prime, but because of her affinity with me? Witness
+that color of her hair, so resembling my father, from whence she is
+called the golden Venus; and lastly, ever laughing, if you give any
+credit to the poets, or their followers the statuaries. What deity did
+the Romans ever more religiously adore than that of Flora, the foundress
+of all pleasure? Nay, if you should but diligently search the lives of
+the most sour and morose of the gods out of Homer and the rest of the
+poets, you would find them all but so many pieces of Folly. And to what
+purpose should I run over any of the other gods' tricks when you know
+enough of Jupiter's loose loves? When that chaste Diana shall so far
+forget her sex as to be ever hunting and ready to perish for Endymion?
+But I had rather they should hear these things from Momus, from whom
+heretofore they were wont to have their shares, till in one of their
+angry humors they tumbled him, together with Ate, goddess of mischief,
+down headlong to the earth, because his wisdom, forsooth, unseasonably
+disturbed their happiness. Nor since that dares any mortal give him
+harbor, though I must confess there wanted little but that he had been
+received into the courts of princes, had not my companion Flattery
+reigned in chief there, with whom and the other there is no more
+correspondence than between lambs and wolves. From whence it is that the
+gods play the fool with the greater liberty and more content to
+themselves "doing all things carelessly," as says Father Homer, that is
+to say, without anyone to correct them. For what ridiculous stuff is
+there which that stump of the fig tree Priapus does not afford them? What
+tricks and legerdemains with which Mercury does not cloak his thefts?
+What buffoonery that Vulcan is not guilty of, while one with his
+polt-foot, another with his smutched muzzle, another with his
+impertinencies, he makes sport for the rest of the gods? As also that old
+Silenus with his country dances, Polyphemus footing time to his Cyclops
+hammers, the nymphs with their jigs, and satyrs with their antics; while
+Pan makes them all twitter with some coarse ballad, which yet they had
+rather hear than the Muses themselves, and chiefly when they are well
+whittled with nectar. Besides, what should I mention what these gods do
+when they are half drunk? Now by my troth, so foolish that I myself can
+hardly refrain laughter. But in these matters 'twere better we remembered
+Harpocrates, lest some eavesdropping god or other take us whispering that
+which Momus only has the privilege of speaking at length.
+
+And therefore, according to Homer's example, I think it high time to
+leave the gods to themselves, and look down a little on the earth;
+wherein likewise you'll find nothing frolic or fortunate that it owes not
+to me. So provident has that great parent of mankind, Nature, been that
+there should not be anything without its mixture and, as it were,
+seasoning of Folly. For since according to the definition of the Stoics,
+wisdom is nothing else than to be governed by reason, and on the contrary
+Folly, to be given up to the will of our passions, that the life of man
+might not be altogether disconsolate and hard to away with, of how much
+more passion than reason has Jupiter composed us? putting in, as one
+would say, "scarce half an ounce to a pound." Besides, he has confined
+reason to a narrow corner of the brain and left all the rest of the body
+to our passions; has also set up, against this one, two as it were,
+masterless tyrants--anger, that possesses the region of the heart, and
+consequently the very fountain of life, the heart itself; and lust, that
+stretches its empire everywhere. Against which double force how powerful
+reason is let common experience declare, inasmuch as she, which yet is
+all she can do, may call out to us till she be hoarse again and tell us
+the rules of honesty and virtue; while they give up the reins to their
+governor and make a hideous clamor, till at last being wearied, he suffer
+himself to be carried whither they please to hurry him.
+
+But forasmuch as such as are born to the business of the world have some
+little sprinklings of reason more than the rest, yet that they may the
+better manage it, even in this as well as in other things, they call me
+to counsel; and I give them such as is worthy of myself, to wit, that
+they take to them a wife--a silly thing, God wot, and foolish, yet wanton
+and pleasant, by which means the roughness of the masculine temper is
+seasoned and sweetened by her folly. For in that Plato seems to doubt
+under what genus he should put woman, to wit, that of rational creatures
+or brutes, he intended no other in it than to show the apparent folly of
+the sex. For if perhaps any of them goes about to be thought wiser than
+the rest, what else does she do but play the fool twice, as if a man
+should "teach a cow to dance," "a thing quite against the hair." For as
+it doubles the crime if anyone should put a disguise upon Nature, or
+endeavor to bring her to that she will in no wise bear, according to that
+proverb of the Greeks, "An ape is an ape, though clad in scarlet;" so a
+woman is a woman still, that is to say foolish, let her put on whatever
+vizard she please.
+
+But, by the way, I hope that sex is not so foolish as to take offense at
+this, that I myself, being a woman, and Folly too, have attributed folly
+to them. For if they weigh it right, they needs must acknowledge that
+they owe it to folly that they are more fortunate than men. As first
+their beauty, which, and that not without cause, they prefer before
+everything, since by its means they exercise a tyranny even upon tyrants
+themselves; otherwise, whence proceeds that sour look, rough skin, bushy
+beard, and such other things as speak plain old age in a man, but from
+that disease of wisdom? Whereas women's cheeks are ever plump and smooth,
+their voice small, their skin soft, as if they imitated a certain kind of
+perpetual youth. Again, what greater thing do they wish in their whole
+lives than that they may please the man? For to what other purpose are
+all those dresses, washes, baths, slops, perfumes, and those several
+little tricks of setting their faces, painting their eyebrows, and
+smoothing their skins? And now tell me, what higher letters of
+recommendation have they to men than this folly? For what is it they do
+not permit them to do? And to what other purpose than that of pleasure?
+Wherein yet their folly is not the least thing that pleases; which so
+true it is, I think no one will deny, that does but consider with
+himself, what foolish discourse and odd gambols pass between a man and
+his woman, as often as he had a mind to be gamesome? And so I have shown
+you whence the first and chiefest delight of man's life springs.
+
+
+But there are some, you'll say, and those too none of the youngest, that
+have a greater kindness for the pot than the petticoat and place their
+chiefest pleasure in good fellowship. If there can be any great
+entertainment without a woman at it, let others look to it. This I am
+sure, there was never any pleasant which folly gave not the relish to.
+Insomuch that if they find no occasion of laughter, they send for "one
+that may make it," or hire some buffoon flatterer, whose ridiculous
+discourse may put by the gravity of the company. For to what purpose were
+it to clog our stomachs with dainties, junkets, and the like stuff,
+unless our eyes and ears, nay whole mind, were likewise entertained with
+jests, merriments, and laughter? But of these kind of second courses I am
+the only cook; though yet those ordinary practices of our feasts, as
+choosing a king, throwing dice, drinking healths, trolling it round,
+dancing the cushion, and the like, were not invented by the seven wise
+men but myself, and that too for the common pleasure of mankind. The
+nature of all which things is such that the more of folly they have, the
+more they conduce to human life, which, if it were unpleasant, did not
+deserve the name of life; and other than such it could not well be,
+did not these kind of diversions wipe away tediousness, next cousin to
+the other.
+
+But perhaps there are some that neglect this way of pleasure and rest
+satisfied in the enjoyment of their friends, calling friendship the most
+desirable of all things, more necessary than either air, fire, or water;
+so delectable that he that shall take it out of the world had as good put
+out the sun; and, lastly, so commendable, if yet that make anything to
+the matter, that neither the philosophers themselves doubted to reckon it
+among their chiefest good. But what if I show you that I am both the
+beginning and end of this so great good also? Nor shall I go about to
+prove it by fallacies, sorites, dilemmas, or other the like subtleties of
+logicians, but after my blunt way point out the thing as clearly as it
+were with my finger.
+
+And now tell me if to wink, slip over, be blind at, or deceived in the
+vices of our friends, nay, to admire and esteem them for virtues, be not
+at least the next degree to folly? What is it when one kisses his
+mistress' freckle neck, another the wart on her nose? When a father shall
+swear his squint-eyed child is more lovely than Venus? What is this, I
+say, but mere folly? And so, perhaps you'll cry it is; and yet 'tis this
+only that joins friends together and continues them so joined. I speak of
+ordinary men, of whom none are born without their imperfections, and
+happy is he that is pressed with the least: for among wise princes there
+is either no friendship at all, or if there be, 'tis unpleasant and
+reserved, and that too but among a very few 'twere a crime to say none.
+For that the greatest part of mankind are fools, nay there is not anyone
+that dotes not in many things; and friendship, you know, is seldom made
+but among equals. And yet if it should so happen that there were a mutual
+good will between them, it is in no wise firm nor very long lived; that
+is to say, among such as are morose and more circumspect than needs, as
+being eagle-sighted into his friends' faults, but so blear-eyed to their
+own that they take not the least notice of the wallet that hangs behind
+their own shoulders. Since then the nature of man is such that there is
+scarce anyone to be found that is not subject to many errors, add to this
+the great diversity of minds and studies, so many slips, oversights, and
+chances of human life, and how is it possible there should be any true
+friendship between those Argus, so much as one hour, were it not for that
+which the Greeks excellently call _euetheian_? And you may render by
+folly or good nature, choose you whether. But what? Is not the author and
+parent of all our love, Cupid, as blind as a beetle? And as with him all
+colors agree, so from him is it that everyone likes his own sweeter-kin
+best, though never so ugly, and "that an old man dotes on his old wife,
+and a boy on his girl." These things are not only done everywhere but
+laughed at too; yet as ridiculous as they are, they make society
+pleasant, and, as it were, glue it together.
+
+And what has been said of friendship may more reasonably be presumed of
+matrimony, which in truth is no other than an inseparable conjunction of
+life. Good God! What divorces, or what not worse than that, would daily
+happen were not the converse between a man and his wife supported and
+cherished by flattery, apishness, gentleness, ignorance, dissembling,
+certain retainers of mine also! Whoop holiday! how few marriages should
+we have, if the husband should but thoroughly examine how many tricks his
+pretty little mop of modesty has played before she was married! And how
+fewer of them would hold together, did not most of the wife's actions
+escape the husband's knowledge through his neglect or sottishness! And
+for this also you are beholden to me, by whose means it is that the
+husband is pleasant to his wife, the wife to her husband, and the house
+kept in quiet. A man is laughed at, when seeing his wife weeping he licks
+up her tears. But how much happier is it to be thus deceived than by
+being troubled with jealousy not only to torment himself but set all
+things in a hubbub!
+
+In fine, I am so necessary to the making of all society and manner of
+life both delightful and lasting, that neither would the people long
+endure their governors, nor the servant his master, nor the master his
+footman, nor the scholar his tutor, nor one friend another, nor the wife
+her husband, nor the usurer the borrower, nor a soldier his commander,
+nor one companion another, unless all of them had their interchangeable
+failings, one while flattering, other while prudently conniving, and
+generally sweetening one another with some small relish of folly.
+
+And now you'd think I had said all, but you shall hear yet greater
+things. Will he, I pray, love anyone that hates himself? Or ever agree
+with another who is not at peace with himself? Or beget pleasure in
+another that is troublesome to himself? I think no one will say it that
+is not more foolish than Folly. And yet, if you should exclude me,
+there's no man but would be so far from enduring another that he would
+stink in his own nostrils, be nauseated with his own actions, and himself
+become odious to himself; forasmuch as Nature, in too many things rather
+a stepdame than a parent to us, has imprinted that evil in men,
+especially such as have least judgment, that everyone repents him of his
+own condition and admires that of others. Whence it comes to pass that
+all her gifts, elegancy, and graces corrupt and perish. For what benefit
+is beauty, the greatest blessing of heaven, if it be mixed with
+affectation? What youth, if corrupted with the severity of old age?
+Lastly, what is that in the whole business of a man's life he can do with
+any grace to himself or others--for it is not so much a thing of art, as
+the very life of every action, that it be done with a good mien--unless
+this my friend and companion, Self-love, be present with it? Nor does she
+without cause supply me the place of a sister, since her whole endeavors
+are to act my part everywhere. For what is more foolish than for a man to
+study nothing else than how to please himself? To make himself the object
+of his own admiration? And yet, what is there that is either delightful
+or taking, nay rather what not the contrary, that a man does against the
+hair? Take away this salt of life, and the orator may even sit still with
+his action, the musician with all his division will be able to please no
+man, the player be hissed off the stage, the poet and all his Muses
+ridiculous, the painter with his art contemptible, and the physician with
+all his slip-slops go a-begging. Lastly, you will be taken for an ugly
+fellow instead of youthful, and a beast instead of a wise man, a child
+instead of eloquent, and instead of a well-bred man, a clown. So
+necessary a thing it is that everyone flatter himself and commend himself
+to himself before he can be commended by others.
+
+Lastly, since it is the chief point of happiness "that a man is willing
+to be what he is," you have further abridged in this my Self-love, that
+no man is ashamed of his own face, no man of his own wit, no man of his
+own parentage, no man of his own house, no man of his manner of living,
+nor any man of his own country; so that a Highlander has no desire to
+change with an Italian, a Thracian with an Athenian, nor a Scythian for
+the Fortunate Islands. O the singular care of Nature, that in so great a
+variety of things has made all equal! Where she has been sometimes
+sparing of her gifts she has recompensed it with the more of self-love;
+though here, I must confess, I speak foolishly, it being the greatest of
+all other her gifts: to say nothing that no great action was ever
+attempted without my motion, or art brought to perfection without my
+help.
+
+Is not war the very root and matter of all famed enterprises? And yet
+what more foolish than to undertake it for I know what trifles,
+especially when both parties are sure to lose more than they get by the
+bargain? For of those that are slain, not a word of them; and for the
+rest, when both sides are close engaged "and the trumpets make an ugly
+noise," what use of those wise men, I pray, that are so exhausted with
+study that their thin, cold blood has scarce any spirits left? No, it
+must be those blunt, fat fellows, that by how much the more they exceed
+in courage, fall short in understanding. Unless perhaps one had rather
+choose Demosthenes for a soldier, who, following the example of
+Archilochius, threw away his arms and betook him to his heels e'er he had
+scarce seen his enemy; as ill a soldier, as happy an orator.
+
+But counsel, you'll say, is not of least concern in matters of war. In a
+general I grant it; but this thing of warring is not part of philosophy,
+but managed by parasites, panders, thieves, cut-throats, plowmen, sots,
+spendthrifts, and such other dregs of mankind, not philosophers; who how
+unapt they are even for common converse, let Socrates, whom the oracle of
+Apollo, though not so wisely, judged "the wisest of all men living," be
+witness; who stepping up to speak somewhat, I know not what, in public
+was forced to come down again well laughed at for his pains. Though yet
+in this he was not altogether a fool, that he refused the appellation of
+wise, and returning it back to the oracle, delivered his opinion that a
+wise man should abstain from meddling with public business; unless
+perhaps he should have rather admonished us to beware of wisdom if we
+intended to be reckoned among the number of men, there being nothing but
+his wisdom that first accused and afterwards sentenced him to the
+drinking of his poisoned cup. For while, as you find him in Aristophanes,
+philosophizing about clouds and ideas, measuring how far a flea could
+leap, and admiring that so small a creature as a fly should make so great
+a buzz, he meddled not with anything that concerned common life. But his
+master being in danger of his head, his scholar Plato is at hand, to wit
+that famous patron, that being disturbed with the noise of the people,
+could not go through half his first sentence. What should I speak of
+Theophrastus, who being about to make an oration, became as dumb as if he
+had met a wolf in his way, which yet would have put courage in a man of
+war? Or Isocrates, that was so cowhearted that he dared never attempt it?
+Or Tully, that great founder of the Roman eloquence, that could never
+begin to speak without an odd kind of trembling, like a boy that had got
+the hiccough; which Fabius interprets as an argument of a wise orator and
+one that was sensible of what he was doing; and while he says it, does he
+not plainly confess that wisdom is a great obstacle to the true
+management of business? What would become of them, think you, were they
+to fight it out at blows that are so dead through fear when the contest
+is only with empty words?
+
+And next to these is cried up, forsooth, that goodly sentence of Plato's,
+"Happy is that commonwealth where a philosopher is prince, or whose
+prince is addicted to philosophy." When yet if you consult historians,
+you'll find no princes more pestilent to the commonwealth than where the
+empire has fallen to some smatterer in philosophy or one given to
+letters. To the truth of which I think the Catoes give sufficient credit;
+of whom the one was ever disturbing the peace of the commonwealth with
+his hair-brained accusations; the other, while he too wisely vindicated
+its liberty, quite overthrew it. Add to this the Bruti, Casii, nay Cicero
+himself, that was no less pernicious to the commonwealth of Rome than was
+Demosthenes to that of Athens. Besides M. Antoninus (that I may give you
+one instance that there was once one good emperor; for with much ado I
+can make it out) was become burdensome and hated of his subjects upon no
+other score but that he was so great a philosopher. But admitting him
+good, he did the commonwealth more hurt in leaving behind him such a son
+as he did than ever he did it good by his own government. For these kind
+of men that are so given up to the study of wisdom are generally most
+unfortunate, but chiefly in their children; Nature, it seems, so
+providently ordering it, lest this mischief of wisdom should spread
+further among mankind. For which reason it is manifest why Cicero's son
+was so degenerate, and that wise Socrates' children, as one has well
+observed, were more like their mother than their father, that is to
+say, fools.
+
+However this were to be born with, if only as to public employments they
+were "like a sow upon a pair of organs," were they anything more apt to
+discharge even the common offices of life. Invite a wise man to a feast
+and he'll spoil the company, either with morose silence or troublesome
+disputes. Take him out to dance, and you'll swear "a cow would have done
+it better." Bring him to the theatre, and his very looks are enough to
+spoil all, till like Cato he take an occasion of withdrawing rather than
+put off his supercilious gravity. Let him fall into discourse, and he
+shall make more sudden stops than if he had a wolf before him. Let him
+buy, or sell, or in short go about any of those things without there is
+no living in this world, and you'll say this piece of wisdom were rather
+a stock than a man, of so little use is he to himself, country, or
+friends; and all because he is wholly ignorant of common things and lives
+a course of life quite different from the people; by which means it is
+impossible but that he contract a popular odium, to wit, by reason of the
+great diversity of their life and souls. For what is there at all done
+among men that is not full of folly, and that too from fools and to
+fools? Against which universal practice if any single one shall dare to
+set up his throat, my advice to him is, that following the example of
+Timon, he retire into some desert and there enjoy his wisdom to himself.
+
+But, to return to my design, what power was it that drew those stony,
+oaken, and wild people into cities but flattery? For nothing else is
+signified by Amphion and Orpheus' harp. What was it that, when the common
+people of Rome were like to have destroyed all by their mutiny, reduced
+them to obedience? Was it a philosophical oration? Least. But a
+ridiculous and childish fable of the belly and the rest of the members.
+And as good success had Themistocles in his of the fox and hedgehog. What
+wise man's oration could ever have done so much with the people as
+Sertorius' invention of his white hind? Or his ridiculous emblem of
+pulling off a horse's tail hair by hair? Or as Lycurgus his example of
+his two whelps? To say nothing of Minos and Numa, both which ruled their
+foolish multitudes with fabulous inventions; with which kind of toys that
+great and powerful beast, the people, are led anyway. Again what city
+ever received Plato's or Aristotle's laws, or Socrates' precepts? But, on
+the contrary, what made the Decii devote themselves to the infernal gods,
+or Q. Curtius to leap into the gulf, but an empty vainglory, a most
+bewitching siren? And yet 'tis strange it should be so condemned by those
+wise philosophers. For what is more foolish, say they, than for a
+suppliant suitor to flatter the people, to buy their favor with gifts, to
+court the applauses of so many fools, to please himself with their
+acclamations, to be carried on the people's shoulders as in triumph, and
+have a brazen statue in the marketplace? Add to this the adoption of
+names and surnames, those divine honors given to a man of no reputation,
+and the deification of the most wicked tyrants with public ceremonies;
+most foolish things, and such as one Democritus is too little to laugh
+at. Who denies it? And yet from this root sprang all the great acts of
+the heroes which the pens of so many eloquent men have extolled to the
+skies. In a word, this folly is that that laid the foundation of cities;
+and by it, empire, authority, religion, policy, and public actions are
+preserved; neither is there anything in human life that is not a kind of
+pastime of folly.
+
+But to speak of arts, what set men's wits on work to invent and transmit
+to posterity so many famous, as they conceive, pieces of learning but the
+thirst of glory? With so much loss of sleep, such pains and travail,
+have the most foolish of men thought to purchase themselves a kind of
+I know not what fame, than which nothing can be more vain. And yet
+notwithstanding, you owe this advantage to folly, and which is the
+most delectable of all other, that you reap the benefit of other
+men's madness.
+
+And now, having vindicated to myself the praise of fortitude and
+industry, what think you if I do the same by that of prudence? But some
+will say, you may as well join fire and water. It may be so. But yet I
+doubt not but to succeed even in this also, if, as you have done
+hitherto, you will but favor me with your attention. And first, if
+prudence depends upon experience, to whom is the honor of that name more
+proper? To the wise man, who partly out of modesty and partly distrust of
+himself, attempts nothing; or the fool, whom neither modesty which he
+never had, nor danger which he never considers, can discourage from
+anything? The wise man has recourse to the books of the ancients, and
+from thence picks nothing but subtleties of words. The fool, in
+undertaking and venturing on the business of the world, gathers, if I
+mistake not, the true prudence, such as Homer though blind may be said to
+have seen when he said, "The burnt child dreads the fire." For there are
+two main obstacles to the knowledge of things, modesty that casts a mist
+before the understanding, and fear that, having fancied a danger,
+dissuades us from the attempt. But from these folly sufficiently frees
+us, and few there are that rightly understand of what great advantage it
+is to blush at nothing and attempt everything.
+
+But if you had rather take prudence for that that consists in the
+judgment of things, hear me, I beseech you, how far they are from it that
+yet crack of the name. For first 'tis evident that all human things, like
+Alcibiades' Sileni or rural gods, carry a double face, but not the least
+alike; so that what at first sight seems to be death, if you view it
+narrowly may prove to be life; and so the contrary. What appears
+beautiful may chance to be deformed; what wealthy, a very beggar; what
+infamous, praiseworthy; what learned, a dunce; what lusty, feeble; what
+jocund, sad; what noble, base; what lucky, unfortunate; what friendly, an
+enemy; and what healthful, noisome. In short, view the inside of these
+Sileni, and you'll find them quite other than what they appear; which, if
+perhaps it shall not seem so philosophically spoken, I'll make it plain
+to you "after my blunt way." Who would not conceive a prince a great lord
+and abundant in everything? But yet being so ill-furnished with the gifts
+of the mind, and ever thinking he shall never have enough, he's the
+poorest of all men. And then for his mind so given up to vice, 'tis a
+shame how it enslaves him. I might in like manner philosophize of the
+rest; but let this one, for example's sake, be enough.
+
+Yet why this? will someone say. Have patience, and I'll show you what I
+drive at. If anyone seeing a player acting his part on a stage should go
+about to strip him of his disguise and show him to the people in his true
+native form, would he not, think you, not only spoil the whole design of
+the play, but deserve himself to be pelted off with stones as a
+phantastical fool and one out of his wits? But nothing is more common
+with them than such changes; the same person one while impersonating a
+woman, and another while a man; now a youngster, and by and by a grim
+seignior; now a king, and presently a peasant; now a god, and in a trice
+again an ordinary fellow. But to discover this were to spoil all, it
+being the only thing that entertains the eyes of the spectators. And what
+is all this life but a kind of comedy, wherein men walk up and down in
+one another's disguises and act their respective parts, till the
+property-man brings them back to the attiring house. And yet he often
+orders a different dress, and makes him that came but just now off in the
+robes of a king put on the rags of a beggar. Thus are all things
+represented by counterfeit, and yet without this there was no living.
+
+And here if any wise man, as it were dropped from heaven, should start up
+and cry, this great thing whom the world looks upon for a god and I know
+not what is not so much as a man, for that like a beast he is led by his
+passions, but the worst of slaves, inasmuch as he gives himself up
+willingly to so many and such detestable masters. Again if he should bid
+a man that were bewailing the death of his father to laugh, for that he
+now began to live by having got an estate, without which life is but a
+kind of death; or call another that were boasting of his family ill
+begotten or base, because he is so far removed from virtue that is the
+only fountain of nobility; and so of the rest: what else would he get by
+it but be thought himself mad and frantic? For as nothing is more foolish
+than preposterous wisdom, so nothing is more unadvised than a forward
+unseasonable prudence. And such is his that does not comply with the
+present time "and order himself as the market goes," but forgetting that
+law of feasts, "either drink or begone," undertakes to disprove a common
+received opinion. Whereas on the contrary 'tis the part of a truly
+prudent man not to be wise beyond his condition, but either to take no
+notice of what the world does, or run with it for company. But this is
+foolish, you'll say; nor shall I deny it, provided always you be so civil
+on the other side as to confess that this is to act a part in that world.
+
+But, O you gods, "shall I speak or hold my tongue?" But why should I be
+silent in a thing that is more true than truth itself? However it might
+not be amiss perhaps in so great an affair to call forth the Muses from
+Helicon, since the poets so often invoke them upon every foolish
+occasion. Be present then awhile, and assist me, you daughters of
+Jupiter, while I make it out that there is no way to that so much famed
+wisdom, nor access to that fortress as they call it of happiness, but
+under the banner of Folly. And first 'tis agreed of all hands that our
+passions belong to Folly; inasmuch as we judge a wise man from a fool by
+this, that the one is ordered by them, the other by reason; and therefore
+the Stoics remove from a wise man all disturbances of mind as so many
+diseases. But these passions do not only the office of a tutor to such as
+are making towards the port of wisdom, but are in every exercise of
+virtue as it were spurs and incentives, nay and encouragers to well
+doing: which though that great Stoic Seneca most strongly denies, and
+takes from a wise man all affections whatever, yet in doing that he
+leaves him not so much as a man but rather a new kind of god that was
+never yet nor ever like to be. Nay, to speak plainer, he sets up a stony
+semblance of a man, void of all sense and common feeling of humanity. And
+much good to them with this wise man of theirs; let them enjoy him to
+themselves, love him without competitors, and live with him in Plato's
+commonwealth, the country of ideas, or Tantalus' orchards. For who would
+not shun and startle at such a man, as at some unnatural accident or
+spirit? A man dead to all sense of nature and common affections, and no
+more moved with love or pity than if he were a flint or rock; whose
+censure nothing escapes; that commits no errors himself, but has a lynx's
+eyes upon others; measures everything by an exact line, and forgives
+nothing; pleases himself with himself only; the only rich, the only wise,
+the only free man, and only king; in brief, the only man that is
+everything, but in his own single judgment only; that cares not for the
+friendship of any man, being himself a friend to no man; makes no doubt
+to make the gods stoop to him, and condemns and laughs at the whole
+actions of our life? And yet such a beast is this their perfect wise man.
+But tell me pray, if the thing were to be carried by most voices, what
+city would choose him for its governor, or what army desire him for their
+general? What woman would have such a husband, what goodfellow such a
+guest, or what servant would either wish or endure such a master? Nay,
+who had not rather have one of the middle sort of fools, who, being a
+fool himself, may the better know how to command or obey fools; and who
+though he please his like, 'tis yet the greater number; one that is kind
+to his wife, merry among his friends, a boon companion, and easy to be
+lived with; and lastly one that thinks nothing of humanity should be a
+stranger to him? But I am weary of this wise man, and therefore I'll
+proceed to some other advantages.
+
+Go to then. Suppose a man in some lofty high tower, and that he could
+look round him, as the poets say Jupiter was now and then wont. To how
+many misfortunes would he find the life of man subject? How miserable, to
+say no worse, our birth, how difficult our education; to how many wrongs
+our childhood exposed, to what pains our youth; how unsupportable our old
+age, and grievous our unavoidable death? As also what troops of diseases
+beset us, how many casualties hang over our heads, how many troubles
+invade us, and how little there is that is not steeped in gall? To say
+nothing of those evils one man brings upon another, as poverty,
+imprisonment, infamy, dishonesty, racks, snares, treachery, reproaches,
+actions, deceits--but I'm got into as endless a work as numbering the
+sands--for what offenses mankind have deserved these things, or what
+angry god compelled them to be born into such miseries is not my present
+business. Yet he that shall diligently examine it with himself, would he
+not, think you, approve the example of the Milesian virgins and kill
+himself? But who are they that for no other reason but that they were
+weary of life have hastened their own fate? Were they not the next
+neighbors to wisdom? among whom, to say nothing of Diogenes, Xenocrates,
+Cato, Cassius, Brutus, that wise man Chiron, being offered immortality,
+chose rather to die than be troubled with the same thing always.
+
+And now I think you see what would become of the world if all men should
+be wise; to wit it were necessary we got another kind of clay and some
+better potter. But I, partly through ignorance, partly unadvisedness, and
+sometimes through forgetfulness of evil, do now and then so sprinkle
+pleasure with the hopes of good and sweeten men up in their greatest
+misfortunes that they are not willing to leave this life, even then when
+according to the account of the destinies this life has left them; and by
+how much the less reason they have to live, by so much the more they
+desire it; so far are they from being sensible of the least wearisomeness
+of life. Of my gift it is, that you have so many old Nestors everywhere
+that have scarce left them so much as the shape of a man; stutterers,
+dotards, toothless, gray-haired, bald; or rather, to use the words of
+Aristophanes, "Nasty, crumpled, miserable, shriveled, bald, toothless,
+and wanting their baubles," yet so delighted with life and to be thought
+young that one dyes his gray hairs; another covers his baldness with a
+periwig; another gets a set of new teeth; another falls desperately in
+love with a young wench and keeps more flickering about her than a young
+man would have been ashamed of. For to see such an old crooked piece with
+one foot in the grave to marry a plump young wench, and that too without
+a portion, is so common that men almost expect to be commended for it.
+But the best sport of all is to see our old women, even dead with age,
+and such skeletons one would think they had stolen out of their graves,
+and ever mumbling in their mouths, "Life is sweet;" and as old as they
+are, still caterwauling, daily plastering their face, scarce ever from
+the glass, gossiping, dancing, and writing love letters. These things are
+laughed at as foolish, as indeed they are; yet they please themselves,
+live merrily, swim in pleasure, and in a word are happy, by my courtesy.
+But I would have them to whom these things seem ridiculous to consider
+with themselves whether it be not better to live so pleasant a life in
+such kind of follies, than, as the proverb goes, "to take a halter and
+hang themselves." Besides though these things may be subject to censure,
+it concerns not my fools in the least, inasmuch as they take no notice of
+it; or if they do, they easily neglect it. If a stone fall upon a man's
+head, that's evil indeed; but dishonesty, infamy, villainy, ill reports
+carry no more hurt in them than a man is sensible of; and if a man have
+no sense of them, they are no longer evils. What are you the worse if the
+people hiss at you, so you applaud yourself? And that a man be able to do
+so, he must owe it to folly.
+
+But methinks I hear the philosophers opposing it and saying 'tis a
+miserable thing for a man to be foolish, to err, mistake, and know
+nothing truly. Nay rather, this is to be a man. And why they should call
+it miserable, I see no reason; forasmuch as we are so born, so bred, so
+instructed, nay such is the common condition of us all. And nothing can
+be called miserable that suits with its kind, unless perhaps you'll think
+a man such because he can neither fly with birds, nor walk on all four
+with beasts, and is not armed with horns as a bull. For by the same
+reason he would call the warlike horse unfortunate, because he understood
+not grammar, nor ate cheese-cakes; and the bull miserable, because he'd
+make so ill a wrestler. And therefore, as a horse that has no skill in
+grammar is not miserable, no more is man in this respect, for that they
+agree with his nature. But again, the virtuosi may say that there was
+particularly added to man the knowledge of sciences, by whose help he
+might recompense himself in understanding for what nature cut him short
+in other things. As if this had the least face of truth, that Nature that
+was so solicitously watchful in the production of gnats, herbs, and
+flowers should have so slept when she made man, that he should have need
+to be helped by sciences, which that old devil Theuth, the evil genius of
+mankind, first invented for his destruction, and are so little conducive
+to happiness that they rather obstruct it; to which purpose they are
+properly said to be first found out, as that wise king in Plato argues
+touching the invention of letters.
+
+Sciences therefore crept into the world with other the pests of mankind,
+from the same head from whence all other mischiefs spring; we'll suppose
+it devils, for so the name imports when you call them demons, that is to
+say, knowing. For that simple people of the golden age, being wholly
+ignorant of everything called learning, lived only by the guidance and
+dictates of nature; for what use of grammar, where every man spoke the
+same language and had no further design than to understand one another?
+What use of logic, where there was no bickering about the double-meaning
+words? What need of rhetoric, where there were no lawsuits? Or to what
+purpose laws, where there were no ill manners? from which without doubt
+good laws first came. Besides, they were more religious than with an
+impious curiosity to dive into the secrets of nature, the dimension of
+stars, the motions, effects, and hidden causes of things; as believing it
+a crime for any man to attempt to be wise beyond his condition. And as to
+the inquiry of what was beyond heaven, that madness never came into their
+heads. But the purity of the golden age declining by degrees, first, as I
+said before, arts were invented by the evil genii; and yet but few, and
+those too received by fewer. After that the Chaldean superstition and
+Greek newfangledness, that had little to do, added I know not how many
+more; mere torments of wit, and that so great that even grammar alone is
+work enough for any man for his whole life.
+
+Though yet among these sciences those only are in esteem that come
+nearest to common sense, that is to say, folly. Divines are half starved,
+naturalists out of heart, astrologers laughed at, and logicians slighted;
+only the physician is worth all the rest. And among them too, the more
+unlearned, impudent, or unadvised he is, the more he is esteemed, even
+among princes. For physic, especially as it is now professed by most men,
+is nothing but a branch of flattery, no less than rhetoric. Next them,
+the second place is given to our law-drivers, if not the first, whose
+profession, though I say it myself, most men laugh at as the ass of
+philosophy; yet there's scarce any business, either so great or so small,
+but is managed by these asses. These purchase their great lordships,
+while in the meantime the divine, having run through the whole body of
+divinity, sits gnawing a radish and is in continual warfare with lice and
+fleas. As therefore those arts are best that have the nearest affinity
+with folly, so are they most happy of all others that have least commerce
+with sciences and follow the guidance of Nature, who is in no wise
+imperfect, unless perhaps we endeavor to leap over those bounds she has
+appointed to us. Nature hates all false coloring and is ever best where
+she is least adulterated with art.
+
+Go to then, don't you find among the several kinds of living creatures
+that they thrive best that understand no more than what Nature taught
+them? What is more prosperous or wonderful than the bee? And though they
+have not the same judgment of sense as other bodies have, yet wherein has
+architecture gone beyond their building of houses? What philosopher ever
+founded the like republic? Whereas the horse, that comes so near man in
+understanding and is therefore so familiar with him, is also partaker of
+his misery. For while he thinks it a shame to lose the race, it often
+happens that he cracks his wind; and in the battle, while he contends for
+victory, he's cut down himself, and, together with his rider "lies biting
+the earth;" not to mention those strong bits, sharp spurs, close stables,
+arms, blows, rider, and briefly, all that slavery he willingly submits
+to, while, imitating those men of valor, he so eagerly strives to be
+revenged of the enemy. Than which how much more were the life of flies or
+birds to be wished for, who living by the instinct of nature, look no
+further than the present, if yet man would but let them alone in it. And
+if at anytime they chance to be taken, and being shut up in cages
+endeavor to imitate our speaking, 'tis strange how they degenerate from
+their native gaiety. So much better in every respect are the works of
+nature than the adulteries of art.
+
+In like manner I can never sufficiently praise that Pythagoras in a
+dunghill cock, who being but one had been yet everything, a philosopher,
+a man, a woman, a king, a private man, a fish, a horse, a frog, and, I
+believe too, a sponge; and at last concluded that no creature was more
+miserable than man, for that all other creatures are content with those
+bounds that nature set them, only man endeavors to exceed them. And
+again, among men he gives the precedency not to the learned or the great,
+but the fool. Nor had that Gryllus less wit than Ulysses with his many
+counsels, who chose rather to lie grunting in a hog sty than be exposed
+with the other to so many hazards. Nor does Homer, that father of
+trifles, dissent from me; who not only called all men "wretched and full
+of calamity," but often his great pattern of wisdom, Ulysses,
+"miserable;" Paris, Ajax, and Achilles nowhere. And why, I pray but that,
+like a cunning fellow and one that was his craft's master, he did nothing
+without the advice of Pallas? In a word he was too wise, and by that
+means ran wide of nature. As therefore among men they are least happy
+that study wisdom, as being in this twice fools, that when they are born
+men, they should yet so far forget their condition as to affect the life
+of gods; and after the example of the giants, with their philosophical
+gimcracks make a war upon nature: so they on the other side seem as
+little miserable as is possible who come nearest to beasts and never
+attempt anything beyond man. Go to then, let's try how demonstrable this
+is; not by enthymemes or the imperfect syllogisms of the Stoics, but by
+plain, downright, and ordinary examples.
+
+And now, by the immortal gods! I think nothing more happy than that
+generation of men we commonly call fools, idiots, lack-wits, and dolts;
+splendid titles too, as I conceive them. I'll tell you a thing, which at
+first perhaps may seem foolish and absurd, yet nothing more true. And
+first they are not afraid of death--no small evil, by Jupiter! They are
+not tormented with the conscience of evil acts, not terrified with the
+fables of ghosts, nor frightened with spirits and goblins. They are not
+distracted with the fear of evils to come nor the hopes of future good.
+In short, they are not disturbed with those thousand of cares to which
+this life is subject. They are neither modest, nor fearful, nor
+ambitious, nor envious, nor love they any man. And lastly, if they should
+come nearer even to the very ignorance of brutes, they could not sin, for
+so hold the divines. And now tell me, you wise fool, with how many
+troublesome cares your mind is continually perplexed; heap together all
+the discommodities of your life, and then you'll be sensible from how
+many evils I have delivered my fools. Add to this that they are not only
+merry, play, sing, and laugh themselves, but make mirth wherever they
+come, a special privilege it seems the gods have given them to refresh
+the pensiveness of life. Whence it is that whereas the world is so
+differently affected one towards another, that all men indifferently
+admit them as their companions, desire, feed, cherish, embrace them, take
+their parts upon all occasions, and permit them without offense to do or
+say what they like. And so little does everything desire to hurt them,
+that even the very beasts, by a kind of natural instinct of their
+innocence no doubt, pass by their injuries. For of them it may be truly
+said that they are consecrate to the gods, and therefore and not without
+cause do men have them in such esteem. Whence is it else that they are in
+so great request with princes that they can neither eat nor drink, go
+anywhere, or be an hour without them? Nay, and in some degree they prefer
+these fools before their crabbish wise men, whom yet they keep about them
+for state's sake. Nor do I conceive the reason so difficult, or that it
+should seem strange why they are preferred before the others, for that
+these wise men speak to princes about nothing but grave, serious matters,
+and trusting to their own parts and learning do not fear sometimes "to
+grate their tender ears with smart truths;" but fools fit them with that
+they most delight in, as jests, laughter, abuses of other men, wanton
+pastimes, and the like.
+
+Again, take notice of this no contemptible blessing which Nature has
+given fools, that they are the only plain, honest men and such as speak
+truth. And what is more commendable than truth? For though that proverb
+of Alcibiades in Plato attributes truth to drunkards and children, yet
+the praise of it is particularly mine, even from the testimony of
+Euripides, among whose other things there is extant that his honorable
+saying concerning us, "A fool speaks foolish things." For whatever a fool
+has in his heart, he both shows it in his looks and expresses it in his
+discourse; while the wise men's are those two tongues which the same
+Euripides mentions, whereof the one speaks truth, the other what they
+judge most seasonable for the occasion. These are they "that turn black
+into white," blow hot and cold with the same breath, and carry a far
+different meaning in their breast from what they feign with their tongue.
+Yet in the midst of all their prosperity, princes in this respect seem to
+me most unfortunate, because, having no one to tell them truth, they are
+forced to receive flatterers for friends.
+
+But, someone may say, the ears of princes are strangers to truth, and for
+this reason they avoid those wise men, because they fear lest someone
+more frank than the rest should dare to speak to them things rather true
+than pleasant; for so the matter is, that they don't much care for truth.
+And yet this is found by experience among my fools, that not only truths
+but even open reproaches are heard with pleasure; so that the same thing
+which, if it came from a wise man's mouth might prove a capital crime,
+spoken by a fool is received with delight. For truth carries with it a
+certain peculiar power of pleasing, if no accident fall in to give
+occasion of offense; which faculty the gods have given only to fools. And
+for the same reasons is it that women are so earnestly delighted with
+this kind of men, as being more propense by nature to pleasure and toys.
+And whatsoever they may happen to do with them, although sometimes it be
+of the most serious, yet they turn it to jest and laughter, as that sex
+was ever quick-witted, especially to color their own faults.
+
+But to return to the happiness of fools, who when they have passed over
+this life with a great deal of pleasantness and without so much as the
+least fear or sense of death, they go straight forth into the Elysian
+field, to recreate their pious and careless souls with such sports as
+they used here. Let's proceed then, and compare the condition of any of
+your wise men with that of this fool. Fancy to me now some example of
+wisdom you'd set up against him; one that had spent his childhood and
+youth in learning the sciences and lost the sweetest part of his life in
+watchings, cares, studies, and for the remaining part of it never so much
+as tasted the least of pleasure; ever sparing, poor, sad, sour, unjust,
+and rigorous to himself, and troublesome and hateful to others; broken
+with paleness, leanness, crassness, sore eyes, and an old age and death
+contracted before their time (though yet, what matter is it, when he die
+that never lived?); and such is the picture of this great wise man.
+
+And here again do those frogs of the Stoics croak at me and say that
+nothing is more miserable than madness. But folly is the next degree, if
+not the very thing. For what else is madness than for a man to be out of
+his wits? But to let them see how they are clean out of the way, with the
+Muses' good favor we'll take this syllogism in pieces. Subtly argued, I
+must confess, but as Socrates in Plato teaches us how by splitting one
+Venus and one Cupid to make two of either, in like manner should those
+logicians have done and distinguished madness from madness, if at least
+they would be thought to be well in their wits themselves. For all
+madness is not miserable, or Horace had never called his poetical fury a
+beloved madness; nor Plato placed the raptures of poets, prophets, and
+lovers among the chiefest blessings of this life; nor that sibyl in
+Virgil called Aeneas' travels mad labors. But there are two sorts of
+madness, the one that which the revengeful Furies send privily from hell,
+as often as they let loose their snakes and put into men's breasts either
+the desire of war, or an insatiate thirst after gold, or some dishonest
+love, or parricide, or incest, or sacrilege, or the like plagues, or when
+they terrify some guilty soul with the conscience of his crimes; the
+other, but nothing like this, that which comes from me and is of all
+other things the most desirable; which happens as often as some pleasing
+dotage not only clears the mind of its troublesome cares but renders it
+more jocund. And this was that which, as a special blessing of the gods,
+Cicero, writing to his friend Atticus, wished to himself, that he might
+be the less sensible of those miseries that then hung over the
+commonwealth.
+
+Nor was that Grecian in Horace much wide of it, who was so far made that
+he would sit by himself whole days in the theatre laughing and clapping
+his hands, as if he had seen some tragedy acting, whereas in truth there
+was nothing presented; yet in other things a man well enough, pleasant
+among his friends, kind to his wife, and so good a master to his servants
+that if they had broken the seal of his bottle, he would not have run mad
+for it. But at last, when by the care of his friends and physic he was
+freed from his distemper and become his own man again, he thus
+expostulates with them, "Now, by Pollux, my friends, you have rather
+killed than preserved me in thus forcing me from my pleasure." By which
+you see he liked it so well that he lost it against his will. And trust
+me, I think they were the madder of the two, and had the greater need of
+hellebore, that should offer to look upon so pleasant a madness as an
+evil to be removed by physic; though yet I have not determined whether
+every distemper of the sense or understanding be to be called madness.
+
+For neither he that having weak eyes should take a mule for an ass, nor
+he that should admire an insipid poem as excellent would be presently
+thought mad; but he that not only errs in his senses but is deceived also
+in his judgment, and that too more than ordinary and upon all occasions--
+he, I must confess, would be thought to come very near to it. As if
+anyone hearing an ass bray should take it for excellent music, or a
+beggar conceive himself a king. And yet this kind of madness, if, as it
+commonly happens, it turn to pleasure, it brings a great delight not only
+to them that are possessed with it but to those also that behold it,
+though perhaps they may not be altogether so mad as the other, for the
+species of this madness is much larger than the people take it to be. For
+one mad man laughs at another, and beget themselves a mutual pleasure.
+Nor does it seldom happen that he that is the more mad, laughs at him
+that is less mad. And in this every man is the more happy in how many
+respects the more he is mad; and if I were judge in the case, he should
+be ranged in that class of folly that is peculiarly mine, which in truth
+is so large and universal that I scarce know anyone in all mankind that
+is wise at all hours, or has not some tang or other of madness.
+
+And to this class do they appertain that slight everything in comparison
+of hunting and protest they take an unimaginable pleasure to hear the
+yell of the horns and the yelps of the hounds, and I believe could pick
+somewhat extraordinary out of their very excrement. And then what
+pleasure they take to see a buck or the like unlaced? Let ordinary
+fellows cut up an ox or a wether, 'twere a crime to have this done by
+anything less than a gentleman! who with his hat off, on his bare knees,
+and a couteau for that purpose (for every sword or knife is not
+allowable), with a curious superstition and certain postures, lays open
+the several parts in their respective order; while they that hem him in
+admire it with silence, as some new religious ceremony, though perhaps
+they have seen it a hundred times before. And if any of them chance to
+get the least piece of it, he presently thinks himself no small
+gentleman. In all which they drive at nothing more than to become beasts
+themselves, while yet they imagine they live the life of princes.
+
+And next these may be reckoned those that have such an itch of building;
+one while changing rounds into squares, and presently again squares into
+rounds, never knowing either measure or end, till at last, reduced to the
+utmost poverty, there remains not to them so much as a place where they
+may lay their head, or wherewith to fill their bellies. And why all this?
+but that they may pass over a few years in feeding their foolish fancies.
+
+And, in my opinion, next these may be reckoned such as with their new
+inventions and occult arts undertake to change the forms of things and
+hunt all about after a certain fifth essence; men so bewitched with this
+present hope that it never repents them of their pains or expense, but
+are ever contriving how they may cheat themselves, till, having spent
+all, there is not enough left them to provide another furnace. And yet
+they have not done dreaming these their pleasant dreams but encourage
+others, as much as in them lies, to the same happiness. And at last, when
+they are quite lost in all their expectations, they cheer up themselves
+with this sentence, "In great things the very attempt is enough," and
+then complain of the shortness of man's life that is not sufficient for
+so great an understanding.
+
+And then for gamesters, I am a little doubtful whether they are to be
+admitted into our college; and yet 'tis a foolish and ridiculous sight to
+see some addicted so to it that they can no sooner hear the rattling of
+the dice but their heart leaps and dances again. And then when time after
+time they are so far drawn on with the hopes of winning that they have
+made shipwreck of all, and having split their ship on that rock of dice,
+no less terrible than the bishop and his clerks, scarce got alive to
+shore, they choose rather to cheat any man of their just debts than not
+pay the money they lost, lest otherwise, forsooth, they be thought no men
+of their words. Again what is it, I pray, to see old fellows and half
+blind to play with spectacles? Nay, and when a justly deserved gout has
+knotted their knuckles, to hire a caster, or one that may put the dice in
+the box for them? A pleasant thing, I must confess, did it not for the
+most part end in quarrels, and therefore belongs rather to the Furies
+than me.
+
+But there is no doubt but that that kind of men are wholly ours who love
+to hear or tell feigned miracles and strange lies and are never weary of
+any tale, though never so long, so it be of ghosts, spirits, goblins,
+devils, or the like; which the further they are from truth, the more
+readily they are believed and the more do they tickle their itching ears.
+And these serve not only to pass away time but bring profit, especially
+to mass priests and pardoners. And next to these are they that have
+gotten a foolish but pleasant persuasion that if they can but see a
+wooden or painted Polypheme Christopher, they shall not die that day; or
+do but salute a carved Barbara, in the usual set form, that he shall
+return safe from battle; or make his application to Erasmus on certain
+days with some small wax candles and proper prayers, that he shall
+quickly be rich. Nay, they have gotten a Hercules, another Hippolytus,
+and a St. George, whose horse most religiously set out with trappings and
+bosses there wants little but they worship; however, they endeavor to
+make him their friend by some present or other, and to swear by his
+master's brazen helmet is an oath for a prince. Or what should I say of
+them that hug themselves with their counterfeit pardons; that have
+measured purgatory by an hourglass, and can without the least mistake
+demonstrate its ages, years, months, days, hours, minutes, and seconds,
+as it were in a mathematical table? Or what of those who, having
+confidence in certain magical charms and short prayers invented by some
+pious imposter, either for his soul's health or profit's sake, promise to
+themselves everything: wealth, honor, pleasure, plenty, good health, long
+life, lively old age, and the next place to Christ in the other world,
+which yet they desire may not happen too soon, that is to say before the
+pleasures of this life have left them?
+
+And now suppose some merchant, soldier, or judge, out of so many rapines,
+parts with some small piece of money. He straight conceives all that sink
+of his whole life quite cleansed; so many perjuries, so many lusts, so
+many debaucheries, so many contentions, so many murders, so many deceits,
+so many breaches of trusts, so many treacheries bought off, as it were by
+compact; and so bought off that they may begin upon a new score. But what
+is more foolish than those, or rather more happy, who daily reciting
+those seven verses of the Psalms promise to themselves more than the top
+of felicity? Which magical verses some devil or other, a merry one
+without doubt but more a blab of his tongue than crafty, is believed to
+have discovered to St. Bernard, but not without a trick. And these are so
+foolish that I am half ashamed of them myself, and yet they are approved,
+and that not only by the common people but even the professors of
+religion. And what, are not they also almost the same where several
+countries avouch to themselves their peculiar saint, and as everyone of
+them has his particular gift, so also his particular form of worship? As,
+one is good for the toothache; another for groaning women; a third, for
+stolen goods; a fourth, for making a voyage prosperous; and a fifth, to
+cure sheep of the rot; and so of the rest, for it would be too tedious to
+run over all. And some there are that are good for more things than one;
+but chiefly, the Virgin Mother, to whom the common people do in a manner
+attribute more than to the Son.
+
+Yet what do they beg of these saints but what belongs to folly? To
+examine it a little. Among all those offerings which are so frequently
+hung up in churches, nay up to the very roof of some of them, did you
+ever see the least acknowledgment from anyone that had left his folly, or
+grown a hair's breadth the wiser? One escapes a shipwreck, and he gets
+safe to shore. Another, run through in a duel, recovers. Another, while
+the rest were fighting, ran out of the field, no less luckily than
+valiantly. Another, condemned to be hanged, by the favor of some saint or
+other, a friend to thieves, got off himself by impeaching his fellows.
+Another escaped by breaking prison. Another recovered from his fever in
+spite of his physician. Another's poison turning to a looseness proved
+his remedy rather than death; and that to his wife's no small sorrow, in
+that she lost both her labor and her charge. Another's cart broke, and he
+saved his horses. Another preserved from the fall of a house. All these
+hang up their tablets, but no one gives thanks for his recovery from
+folly; so sweet a thing it is not to be wise, that on the contrary men
+rather pray against anything than folly.
+
+But why do I launch out into this ocean of superstitions? Had I a hundred
+tongues, as many mouths, and a voice never so strong, yet were I not able
+to run over the several sorts of fools or all the names of folly, so
+thick do they swarm everywhere. And yet your priests make no scruple to
+receive and cherish them as proper instruments of profit; whereas if some
+scurvy wise fellow should step up and speak things as they are, as, to
+live well is the way to die well; the best way to get quit of sin is to
+add to the money you give the hatred of sin, tears, watchings, prayers,
+fastings, and amendment of life; such or such a saint will favor you, if
+you imitate his life--these, I say, and the like--should this wise man
+chat to the people, from what happiness into how great troubles would he
+draw them?
+
+Of this college also are they who in their lifetime appoint with what
+solemnity they'll be buried, and particularly set down how many torches,
+how many mourners, how many singers, how many almsmen they will have at
+it; as if any sense of it could come to them, or that it were a shame to
+them that their corpse were not honorably interred; so curious are they
+herein, as if, like the aediles of old, these were to present some shows
+or banquet to the people.
+
+And though I am in haste, yet I cannot yet pass by them who, though they
+differ nothing from the meanest cobbler, yet 'tis scarcely credible how
+they flatter themselves with the empty title of nobility. One derives his
+pedigree from Aeneas, another from Brutus, a third from the star by the
+tail of Ursa Major. They show you on every side the statues and pictures
+of their ancestors; run over their great-grandfathers and the
+great-great-grandfathers of both lines, and the ancient matches of their
+families, when themselves yet are but once removed from a statue, if not
+worse than those trifles they boast of. And yet by means of this pleasant
+self-love they live a happy life. Nor are they less fools who admire
+these beasts as if they were gods.
+
+But what do I speak of any one or the other particular kind of men, as if
+this self-love had not the same effect everywhere and rendered most men
+superabundantly happy? As when a fellow, more deformed than a baboon,
+shall believe himself handsomer than Homer's Nereus. Another, as soon as
+he can draw two or three lines with a compass, presently thinks himself a
+Euclid. A third, that understands music no more than my horse, and for
+his voice as hoarse as a dunghill cock, shall yet conceive himself
+another Hermogenes. But of all madness that's the most pleasant when a
+man, seeing another any way excellent in what he pretends to himself,
+makes his boasts of it as confidently as if it were his own. And such was
+that rich fellow in Seneca, who whenever he told a story had his servants
+at his elbow to prompt him the names; and to that height had they
+flattered him that he did not question but he might venture a rubber at
+cuffs, a man otherwise so weak he could scarce stand, only presuming on
+this, that he had a company of sturdy servants about him.
+
+Or to what purpose is it I should mind you of our professors of arts?
+Forasmuch as this self-love is so natural to them all that they had
+rather part with their father's land than their foolish opinions; but
+chiefly players, fiddlers, orators, and poets, of which the more ignorant
+each of them is, the more insolently he pleases himself, that is to say
+vaunts and spreads out his plumes. And like lips find like lettuce; nay,
+the more foolish anything is, the more 'tis admired, the greater number
+being ever tickled at the worst things, because, as I said before, most
+men are so subject to folly. And therefore if the more foolish a man is,
+the more he pleases himself and is admired by others, to what purpose
+should he beat his brains about true knowledge, which first will cost him
+dear, and next render him the more troublesome and less confident, and
+lastly, please only a few?
+
+And now I consider it, Nature has planted, not only in particular men but
+even in every nation, and scarce any city is there without it, a kind of
+common self-love. And hence is it that the English, besides other things,
+particularly challenge to themselves beauty, music, and feasting. The
+Scots are proud of their nobility, alliance to the crown, and logical
+subtleties. The French think themselves the only well-bred men. The
+Parisians, excluding all others, arrogate to themselves the only
+knowledge of divinity. The Italians affirm they are the only masters of
+good letters and eloquence, and flatter themselves on this account, that
+of all others they only are not barbarous. In which kind of happiness
+those of Rome claim the first place, still dreaming to themselves of
+somewhat, I know not what, of old Rome. The Venetians fancy themselves
+happy in the opinion of their nobility. The Greeks, as if they were the
+only authors of sciences, swell themselves with the titles of the ancient
+heroes. The Turk, and all that sink of the truly barbarous, challenge to
+themselves the only glory of religion and laugh at Christians as
+superstitious. And much more pleasantly the Jews expect to this day the
+coming of the Messiah, and so obstinately contend for their Law of Moses.
+The Spaniards give place to none in the reputation of soldiery. The
+Germans pride themselves in their tallness of stature and skill in magic.
+
+And, not to instance in every particular, you see, I conceive, how much
+satisfaction this Self-love, who has a sister also not unlike herself
+called Flattery, begets everywhere; for self-love is no more than the
+soothing of a man's self, which, done to another, is flattery. And though
+perhaps at this day it may be thought infamous, yet it is so only with
+them that are more taken with words than things. They think truth is
+inconsistent with flattery, but that it is much otherwise we may learn
+from the examples of true beasts. What more fawning than a dog? And yet
+what more trusty? What has more of those little tricks than a squirrel?
+And yet what more loving to man? Unless, perhaps you'll say, men had
+better converse with fierce lions, merciless tigers, and furious
+leopards. For that flattery is the most pernicious of all things, by
+means of which some treacherous persons and mockers have run the
+credulous into such mischief. But this of mine proceeds from a certain
+gentleness and uprightness of mind and comes nearer to virtue than its
+opposite, austerity, or a morose and troublesome peevishness, as Horace
+calls it. This supports the dejected, relieves the distressed, encourages
+the fainting, awakens the stupid, refreshes the sick, supplies the
+untractable, joins loves together, and keeps them so joined. It entices
+children to take their learning, makes old men frolic, and, under the
+color of praise, does without offense both tell princes their faults and
+show them the way to amend them. In short, it makes every man the more
+jocund and acceptable to himself, which is the chiefest point of
+felicity. Again, what is more friendly than when two horses scrub one
+another? And to say nothing of it, that it's a main part of physic,
+and the only thing in poetry; 'tis the delight and relish of all
+human society.
+
+But 'tis a sad thing, they say, to be mistaken. Nay rather, he is most
+miserable that is not so. For they are quite beside the mark that place
+the happiness of men in things themselves, since it only depends upon
+opinion. For so great is the obscurity and variety of human affairs that
+nothing can be clearly known, as it is truly said by our academics, the
+least insolent of all the philosophers; or if it could, it would but
+obstruct the pleasure of life. Lastly, the mind of man is so framed that
+it is rather taken with the false colors than truth; of which if anyone
+has a mind to make the experiment, let him go to church and hear sermons,
+in which if there be anything serious delivered, the audience is either
+asleep, yawning, or weary of it; but if the preacher--pardon my mistake,
+I would have said declaimer--as too often it happens, fall but into an
+old wives' story, they're presently awake, prick up their ears and gape
+after it. In like manner, if there be any poetical saint, or one of whom
+there goes more stories than ordinary, as for example, a George, a
+Christopher, or a Barbara, you shall see him more religiously worshiped
+than Peter, Paul, or even Christ himself. But these things are not for
+this place.
+
+And now at how cheap a rate is this happiness purchased! Forasmuch as to
+the thing itself a man's whole endeavor is required, be it never so
+inconsiderable; but the opinion of it is easily taken up, which yet
+conduces as much or more to happiness. For suppose a man were eating
+rotten stockfish, the very smell of which would choke another, and yet
+believed it a dish for the gods, what difference is there as to his
+happiness? Whereas on the contrary, if another's stomach should turn at a
+sturgeon, wherein, I pray, is he happier than the other? If a man have a
+crooked, ill-favored wife, who yet in his eye may stand in competition
+with Venus, is it not the same as if she were truly beautiful? Or if
+seeing an ugly, ill-pointed piece, he should admire the work as believing
+it some great master's hand, were he not much happier, think you, than
+they that buy such things at vast rates, and yet perhaps reap less
+pleasure from them than the other? I know one of my name that gave his
+new married wife some counterfeit jewels, and as he was a pleasant droll,
+persuaded her that they were not only right but of an inestimable price;
+and what difference, I pray, to her, that was as well pleased and
+contented with glass and kept it as warily as if it had been a treasure?
+In the meantime the husband saved his money and had this advantage of her
+folly, that he obliged her as much as if he had bought them at a great
+rate. Or what difference, think you, between those in Plato's imaginary
+cave that stand gaping at the shadows and figures of things, so they
+please themselves and have no need to wish, and that wise man, who, being
+got loose from them, sees things truly as they are? Whereas that cobbler
+in Lucian if he might always have continued his golden dreams, he would
+never have desired any other happiness. So then there is no difference;
+or, if there be, the fools have the advantage: first, in that their
+happiness costs them least, that is to say, only some small persuasion;
+next, that they enjoy it in common. And the possession of no good can be
+delightful without a companion. For who does not know what a dearth there
+is of wise men, if yet any one be to be found? And though the Greeks for
+these so many ages have accounted upon seven only, yet so help me
+Hercules, do but examine them narrowly, and I'll be hanged if you find
+one half-witted fellow, nay or so much as one-quarter of a wise man,
+among them all.
+
+For whereas among the many praises of Bacchus they reckon this the chief,
+that he washes away cares, and that too in an instant, do but sleep off
+his weak spirits, and they come on again, as we say, on horseback. But
+how much larger and more present is the benefit you receive by me, since,
+as it were with a perpetual drunkenness I fill your minds with mirth,
+fancies, and jollities, and that too without any trouble? Nor is there
+any man living whom I let be without it; whereas the gifts of the gods
+are scrambled, some to one and some to another. The sprightly delicious
+wine that drives away cares and leaves such a flavor behind it grows not
+everywhere. Beauty, the gift of Venus, happens to few; and to fewer gives
+Mercury eloquence. Hercules makes not everyone rich. Homer's Jupiter
+bestows not empire on all men. Mars oftentimes favors neither side. Many
+return sad from Apollo's oracle. Phoebus sometimes shoots a plague among
+us. Neptune drowns more than he saves: to say nothing of those
+mischievous gods, Plutoes, Ates, punishments, favors, and the like, not
+gods but executioners. I am that only Folly that so readily and
+indifferently bestows my benefits on all. Nor do I look to be entreated,
+or am I subject to take pet, and require an expiatory sacrifice if some
+ceremony be omitted. Nor do I beat heaven and earth together if, when the
+rest of the gods are invited, I am passed by or not admitted to the
+stream of their sacrifices. For the rest of the gods are so curious in
+this point that such an omission may chance to spoil a man's business;
+and therefore one has as good even let them alone as worship them: just
+like some men, who are so hard to please, and withall so ready to do
+mischief, that 'tis better be a stranger than have any familiarity
+with them.
+
+But no man, you'll say, ever sacrificed to Folly or built me a temple.
+And troth, as I said before, I cannot but wonder at the ingratitude; yet
+because I am easily to be entreated, I take this also in good part,
+though truly I can scarce request it. For why should I require incense,
+wafers, a goat, or sow when all men pay me that worship everywhere which
+is so much approved even by our very divines? Unless perhaps I should
+envy Diana that her sacrifices are mingled with human blood. Then do I
+conceive myself most religiously worshiped when everywhere, as 'tis
+generally done, men embrace me in their minds, express me in their
+manners, and represent me in their lives, which worship of the saints is
+not so ordinary among Christians. How many are there that burn candles to
+the Virgin Mother, and that too at noonday when there's no need of them!
+But how few are there that study to imitate her in pureness of life,
+humility and love of heavenly things, which is the true worship and most
+acceptable to heaven! Besides why should I desire a temple when the whole
+world is my temple, and I'm deceived or 'tis a goodly one? Nor can I want
+priests but in a land where there are no men. Nor am I yet so foolish as
+to require statues or painted images, which do often obstruct my worship,
+since among the stupid and gross multitude those figures are worshiped
+for the saints themselves. And so it would fare with me, as it does with
+them that are turned out of doors by their substitutes. No, I have
+statues enough, and as many as there are men, everyone bearing my lively
+resemblance in his face, how unwilling so ever he be to the contrary. And
+therefore there is no reason why I should envy the rest of the gods if in
+particular places they have their particular worship, and that too on set
+days--as Phoebus at Rhodes; at Cyprus, Venus; at Argos, Juno; at Athens,
+Minerva; in Olympus, Jupiter; at Tarentum, Neptune; and near the
+Hellespont, Priapus--as long as the world in general performs me every
+day much better sacrifices.
+
+Wherein notwithstanding if I shall seem to anyone to have spoken more
+boldly than truly, let us, if you please, look a little into the lives of
+men, and it will easily appear not only how much they owe to me, but how
+much they esteem me even from the highest to the lowest. And yet we will
+not run over the lives of everyone, for that would be too long, but only
+some few of the great ones, from whence we shall easily conjecture the
+rest. For to what purpose is it to say anything of the common people, who
+without dispute are wholly mine? For they abound everywhere with so many
+several sorts of folly, and are every day so busy in inventing new, that
+a thousand Democriti are too few for so general a laughter though there
+were another Democritus to laugh at them too. 'Tis almost incredible what
+sport and pastime they daily make the gods; for though they set aside
+their sober forenoon hours to dispatch business and receive prayers, yet
+when they begin to be well whittled with nectar and cannot think of
+anything that's serious, they get them up into some part of heaven that
+has better prospect than other and thence look down upon the actions of
+men. Nor is there anything that pleases them better. Good, good! what an
+excellent sight it is! How many several hurly-burlies of fools! for I
+myself sometimes sit among those poetical gods.
+
+Here's one desperately in love with a young wench, and the more she
+slights him the more outrageously he loves her. Another marries a woman's
+money, not herself. Another's jealousy keeps more eyes on her than Argos.
+Another becomes a mourner, and how foolishly he carries it! nay, hires
+others to bear him company to make it more ridiculous. Another weeps over
+his mother-in-law's grave. Another spends all he can rap and run on his
+belly, to be the more hungry after it. Another thinks there is no
+happiness but in sleep and idleness. Another turmoils himself about other
+men's business and neglects his own. Another thinks himself rich in
+taking up moneys and changing securities, as we say borrowing of Peter to
+pay Paul, and in a short time becomes bankrupt. Another starves himself
+to enrich his heir. Another for a small and uncertain gain exposes his
+life to the casualties of seas and winds, which yet no money can restore.
+Another had rather get riches by war than live peaceably at home. And
+some there are that think them easiest attained by courting old childless
+men with presents; and others again by making rich old women believe they
+love them; both which afford the gods most excellent pastime, to see them
+cheated by those persons they thought to have over-caught. But the most
+foolish and basest of all others are our merchants, to wit such as
+venture on everything be it never so dishonest, and manage it no better;
+who though they lie by no allowance, swear and forswear, steal, cozen,
+and cheat, yet shuffle themselves into the first rank, and all because
+they have gold rings on their fingers. Nor are they without their
+flattering friars that admire them and give them openly the title of
+honorable, in hopes, no doubt, to get some small snip of it themselves.
+
+There are also a kind of Pythagoreans with whom all things are so common
+that if they get anything under their cloaks, they make no more scruple
+of carrying it away than if it were their own by inheritance. There are
+others too that are only rich in conceit, and while they fancy to
+themselves pleasant dreams, conceive that enough to make them happy. Some
+desire to be accounted wealthy abroad and are yet ready to starve at
+home. One makes what haste he can to set all going, and another rakes it
+together by right or wrong. This man is ever laboring for public honors,
+and another lies sleeping in a chimney corner. A great many undertake
+endless suits and outvie one another who shall most enrich the dilatory
+judge or corrupt advocate. One is all for innovations and another for
+some great he-knows-not-what. Another leaves his wife and children at
+home and goes to Jerusalem, Rome, or in pilgrimage to St. James's where
+he has no business. In short, if a man like Menippus of old could look
+down from the moon and behold those innumerable rufflings of mankind, he
+would think he saw a swarm of flies and gnats quarreling among
+themselves, fighting, laying traps for one another, snatching, playing,
+wantoning, growing up, falling, and dying. Nor is it to be believed what
+stir, what broils, this little creature raises, and yet in how short a
+time it comes to nothing itself; while sometimes war, other times
+pestilence, sweeps off many thousands of them together.
+
+But let me be most foolish myself, and one whom Democritus may not only
+laugh at but flout, if I go one foot further in the discovery of the
+follies and madnesses of the common people. I'll betake me to them that
+carry the reputation of wise men and hunt after that golden bough, as
+says the proverb. Among whom the grammarians hold the first place, a
+generation of men than whom nothing would be more miserable, nothing more
+perplexed, nothing more hated of the gods, did not I allay the troubles
+of that pitiful profession with a certain kind of pleasant madness. For
+they are not only subject to those five curses with which Home begins his
+Iliads, as says the Greek epigram, but six hundred; as being ever
+hunger-starved and slovens in their schools--schools, did I say? Nay,
+rather cloisters, bridewells, or slaughterhouses--grown old among a
+company of boys, deaf with their noise, and pined away with stench and
+nastiness. And yet by my courtesy it is that they think themselves the
+most excellent of all men, so greatly do they please themselves in
+frighting a company of fearful boys with a thundering voice and big looks,
+tormenting them with ferules, rods, and whips; and, laying about them
+without fear or wit, imitate the ass in the lion's skin. In the meantime
+all that nastiness seems absolute spruceness, that stench a perfume, and
+that miserable slavery a kingdom, and such too as they would not change
+their tyranny for Phalaris' or Dionysius' empire. Nor are they less happy
+in that new opinion they have taken up of being learned; for whereas most
+of them beat into boys' heads nothing but foolish toys, yet, you good
+gods! what Palemon, what Donatus, do they not scorn in comparison of
+themselves? And so, I know not by what tricks, they bring it about that
+to their boys' foolish mothers and dolt-headed fathers they pass for such
+as they fancy themselves. Add to this that other pleasure of theirs, that
+if any of them happen to find out who was Anchises' mother, or pick out
+of some worm-eaten manuscript a word not commonly known--as suppose it
+bubsequa for a cowherd, bovinator for a wrangler, manticulator for a
+cutpurse--or dig up the ruins of some ancient monument with the letters
+half eaten out; O Jupiter! what towerings! what triumphs! what
+commendations! as if they had conquered Africa or taken in Babylon.
+
+But what of this when they give up and down their foolish insipid verses,
+and there wants not others that admire them as much? They believe
+presently that Virgil's soul is transmigrated into them! But nothing like
+this, when with mutual compliments they praise, admire, and claw one
+another. Whereas if another do but slip a word and one more quick-sighted
+than the rest discover it by accident, O Hercules! what uproars, what
+bickerings, what taunts, what invectives! If I lie, let me have the ill
+will of all the grammarians. I knew in my time one of many arts, a
+Grecian, a Latinist, a mathematician, a philosopher, a physician, a man
+master of them all, and sixty years of age, who, laying by all the rest,
+perplexed and tormented himself for above twenty years in the study of
+grammar, fully reckoning himself a prince if he might but live so long
+till he could certainly determine how the eight parts of speech were to
+be distinguished, which none of the Greeks or Latins had yet fully
+cleared: as if it were a matter to be decided by the sword if a man made
+an adverb of a conjunction. And for this cause is it that we have as many
+grammars as grammarians; nay more, forasmuch as my friend Aldus has given
+us above five, not passing by any kind of grammar, how barbarously or
+tediously soever compiled, which he has not turned over and examined;
+envying every man's attempts in this kind, how to be pitied than happy,
+as persons that are ever tormenting themselves; adding, changing, putting
+in, blotting out, revising, reprinting, showing it to friends, and nine
+years in correcting, yet never fully satisfied; at so great a rate do
+they purchase this vain reward, to wit, praise, and that too of a very
+few, with so many watchings, so much sweat, so much vexation and loss of
+sleep, the most precious of all things. Add to this the waste of health,
+spoil of complexion, weakness of eyes or rather blindness, poverty, envy,
+abstinence from pleasure, over-hasty old age, untimely death, and the
+like; so highly does this wise man value the approbation of one or two
+blear-eyed fellows. But how much happier is this my writer's dotage who
+never studies for anything but puts in writing whatever he pleases or
+what comes first in his head, though it be but his dreams; and all this
+with small waste of paper, as well knowing that the vainer those trifles
+are, the higher esteem they will have with the greater number, that is to
+say all the fools and unlearned. And what matter is it to slight those
+few learned if yet they ever read them? Or of what authority will the
+censure of so few wise men be against so great a cloud of gainsayers?
+
+But they are the wiser that put out other men's works for their own, and
+transfer that glory which others with great pains have obtained to
+themselves; relying on this, that they conceive, though it should so
+happen that their theft be never so plainly detected, that yet they
+should enjoy the pleasure of it for the present. And 'tis worth one's
+while to consider how they please themselves when they are applauded by
+the common people, pointed at in a crowd, "This is that excellent
+person;" lie on booksellers' stalls; and in the top of every page have
+three hard words read, but chiefly exotic and next degree to conjuring;
+which, by the immortal gods! what are they but mere words? And again, if
+you consider the world, by how few understood, and praised by fewer! for
+even among the unlearned there are different palates. Or what is it that
+their own very names are often counterfeit or borrowed from some books of
+the ancients? When one styles himself Telemachus, another Sthenelus, a
+third Laertes, a fourth Polycrates, a fifth Thrasymachus. So that there
+is no difference whether they title their books with the "Tale of a Tub,"
+or, according to the philosophers, by alpha, beta.
+
+But the most pleasant of all is to see them praise one another with
+reciprocal epistles, verses, and encomiums; fools their fellow fools, and
+dunces their brother dunces. This, in the other's opinion, is an absolute
+Alcaeus; and the other, in his, a very Callimachus. He looks upon Tully
+as nothing to the other, and the other again pronounces him more learned
+than Plato. And sometimes too they pick out their antagonist and think to
+raise themselves a fame by writing one against the other; while the giddy
+multitude are so long divided to whether of the two they shall determine
+the victory, till each goes off conqueror, and, as if he had done some
+great action, fancies himself a triumph. And now wise men laugh at these
+things as foolish, as indeed they are. Who denies it? Yet in the
+meantime, such is my kindness to them, they live a merry life and would
+not change their imaginary triumphs, no, not with the Scipioes. While yet
+those learned men, though they laugh their fill and reap the benefit of
+the other's folly, cannot without ingratitude deny but that even they too
+are not a little beholding to me themselves.
+
+And among them our advocates challenge the first place, nor is there any
+sort of people that please themselves like them: for while they daily
+roll Sisyphus his stone, and quote you a thousand cases, as it were, in a
+breath no matter how little to the purpose, and heap glosses upon
+glosses, and opinions on the neck of opinions, they bring it at last to
+this pass, that that study of all other seems the most difficult. Add to
+these our logicians and sophists, a generation of men more prattling than
+an echo and the worst of them able to outchat a hundred of the best
+picked gossips. And yet their condition would be much better were they
+only full of words and not so given to scolding that they most
+obstinately hack and hew one another about a matter of nothing and make
+such a sputter about terms and words till they have quite lost the sense.
+And yet they are so happy in the good opinion of themselves that as soon
+as they are furnished with two or three syllogisms, they dare boldly
+enter the lists against any man upon any point, as not doubting but to
+run him down with noise, though the opponent were another Stentor.
+
+And next these come our philosophers, so much reverenced for their furred
+gowns and starched beards that they look upon themselves as the only wise
+men and all others as shadows. And yet how pleasantly do they dote while
+they frame in their heads innumerable worlds; measure out the sun, the
+moon, the stars, nay and heaven itself, as it were, with a pair of
+compasses; lay down the causes of lightning, winds, eclipses, and other
+the like inexplicable matters; and all this too without the least
+doubting, as if they were Nature's secretaries, or dropped down among us
+from the council of the gods; while in the meantime Nature laughs at them
+and all their blind conjectures. For that they know nothing, even this is
+a sufficient argument, that they don't agree among themselves and so are
+incomprehensible touching every particular. These, though they have not
+the least degree of knowledge, profess yet that they have mastered all;
+nay, though they neither know themselves, nor perceive a ditch or block
+that lies in their way, for that perhaps most of them are half blind, or
+their wits a wool-gathering, yet give out that they have discovered
+ideas, universalities, separated forms, first matters, quiddities,
+haecceities, formalities, and the like stuff; things so thin and bodiless
+that I believe even Lynceus himself was not able to perceive them. But
+then chiefly do they disdain the unhallowed crowd as often as with their
+triangles, quadrangles, circles, and the like mathematical devices, more
+confounded than a labyrinth, and letters disposed one against the other,
+as it were in battle array, they cast a mist before the eyes of the
+ignorant. Nor is there wanting of this kind some that pretend to
+foretell things by the stars and make promises of miracles beyond
+all things of soothsaying, and are so fortunate as to meet with people
+that believe them.
+
+But perhaps I had better pass over our divines in silence and not stir
+this pool or touch this fair but unsavory plant, as a kind of men that
+are supercilious beyond comparison, and to that too, implacable; lest
+setting them about my ears, they attack me by troops and force me to a
+recantation sermon, which if I refuse, they straight pronounce me a
+heretic. For this is the thunderbolt with which they fright those whom
+they are resolved not to favor. And truly, though there are few others
+that less willingly acknowledge the kindnesses I have done them, yet even
+these too stand fast bound to me upon no ordinary accounts; while being
+happy in their own opinion, and as if they dwelt in the third heaven,
+they look with haughtiness on all others as poor creeping things and
+could almost find in their hearts to pity them; while hedged in with so
+many magisterial definitions, conclusions, corollaries, propositions
+explicit and implicit, they abound with so many starting-holes that
+Vulcan's net cannot hold them so fast, but they'll slip through with
+their distinctions, with which they so easily cut all knots asunder that
+a hatchet could not have done it better, so plentiful are they in their
+new-found words and prodigious terms. Besides, while they explicate the
+most hidden mysteries according to their own fancy--as how the world was
+first made; how original sin is derived to posterity; in what manner, how
+much room, and how long time Christ lay in the Virgin's womb; how
+accidents subsist in the Eucharist without their subject.
+
+But these are common and threadbare; these are worthy of our great and
+illuminated divines, as the world calls them! At these, if ever they fall
+athwart them, they prick up--as whether there was any instant of time in
+the generation of the Second Person; whether there be more than one
+filiation in Christ; whether it be a possible proposition that God the
+Father hates the Son; or whether it was possible that Christ could have
+taken upon Him the likeness of a woman, or of the devil, or of an ass, or
+of a stone, or of a gourd; and then how that gourd should have preached,
+wrought miracles, or been hung on the cross; and what Peter had
+consecrated if he had administered the Sacrament at what time the body of
+Christ hung upon the cross; or whether at the same time he might be said
+to be man; whether after the Resurrection there will be any eating and
+drinking, since we are so much afraid of hunger and thirst in this world.
+There are infinite of these subtle trifles, and others more subtle than
+these, of notions, relations, instants, formalities, quiddities,
+haecceities, which no one can perceive without a Lynceus whose eyes could
+look through a stone wall and discover those things through the thickest
+darkness that never were.
+
+Add to this those their other determinations, and those too so contrary
+to common opinion that those oracles of the Stoics, which they call
+paradoxes, seem in comparison of these but blockish and idle--as 'tis a
+lesser crime to kill a thousand men than to set a stitch on a poor man's
+shoe on the Sabbath day; and that a man should rather choose that the
+whole world with all food and raiment, as they say, should perish, than
+tell a lie, though never so inconsiderable. And these most subtle
+subtleties are rendered yet more subtle by the several methods of so many
+Schoolmen, that one might sooner wind himself out of a labyrinth than the
+entanglements of the realists, nominalists, Thomists, Albertists,
+Occamists, Scotists. Nor have I named all the several sects, but only
+some of the chief; in all which there is so much doctrine and so much
+difficulty that I may well conceive the apostles, had they been to deal
+with these new kind of divines, had needed to have prayed in aid of some
+other spirit.
+
+Paul knew what faith was, and yet when he said, "Faith is the substance
+of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen," he did not
+define it doctor-like. And as he understood charity well himself, so he
+did as illogically divide and define it to others in his first Epistle to
+the Corinthians, Chapter the thirteenth. And devoutly, no doubt, did the
+apostles consecrate the Eucharist; yet, had they been asked the question
+touching the "terminus a quo" and the "terminus ad quem" of
+transubstantiation; of the manner how the same body can be in several
+places at one and the same time; of the difference the body of Christ has
+in heaven from that of the cross, or this in the Sacrament; in what point
+of time transubstantiation is, whereas prayer, by means of which it is,
+as being a discrete quantity, is transient; they would not, I conceive,
+have answered with the same subtlety as the Scotists dispute and define
+it. They knew the mother of Jesus, but which of them has so
+philosophically demonstrated how she was preserved from original sin as
+have done our divines? Peter received the keys, and from Him too that
+would not have trusted them with a person unworthy; yet whether he had
+understanding or no, I know not, for certainly he never attained to that
+subtlety to determine how he could have the key of knowledge that had no
+knowledge himself. They baptized far and near, and yet taught nowhere
+what was the formal, material, efficient, and final cause of baptism, nor
+made the least mention of delible and indelible characters. They
+worshiped, 'tis true, but in spirit, following herein no other than that
+of the Gospel, "God is a Spirit, and they that worship, must worship him
+in spirit and truth;" yet it does not appear it was at that time revealed
+to them that an image sketched on the wall with a coal was to be
+worshiped with the same worship as Christ Himself, if at least the two
+forefingers be stretched out, the hair long and uncut, and have three
+rays about the crown of the head. For who can conceive these things,
+unless he has spent at least six and thirty years in the philosophical
+and supercelestial whims of Aristotle and the Schoolmen?
+
+In like manner, the apostles press to us grace; but which of them
+distinguishes between free grace and grace that makes a man acceptable?
+They exhort us to good works, and yet determine not what is the work
+working, and what a resting in the work done. They incite us to charity,
+and yet make no difference between charity infused and charity wrought in
+us by our own endeavors. Nor do they declare whether it be an accident or
+a substance, a thing created or uncreated. They detest and abominate sin,
+but let me not live if they could define according to art what that is
+which we call sin, unless perhaps they were inspired by the spirit of the
+Scotists. Nor can I be brought to believe that Paul, by whose learning
+you may judge the rest, would have so often condemned questions,
+disputes, genealogies, and, as himself calls them, "strifes of words," if
+he had thoroughly understood those subtleties, especially when all the
+debates and controversies of those times were rude and blockish in
+comparison of the more than Chrysippean subtleties of our masters.
+Although yet the gentlemen are so modest that if they meet with anything
+written by the apostles not so smooth and even as might be expected from
+a master, they do not presently condemn it but handsomely bend it to
+their own purpose, so great respect and honor do they give, partly to
+antiquity and partly to the name of apostle. And truly 'twas a kind of
+injustice to require so great things of them that never heard the least
+word from their masters concerning it. And so if the like happen in
+Chrysostom, Basil, Jerome, they think it enough to say they are not
+obliged by it.
+
+The apostles also confuted the heathen philosophers and Jews, a people
+than whom none more obstinate, but rather by their good lives and
+miracles than syllogisms: and yet there was scarce one among them that
+was capable of understanding the least "quodlibet" of the Scotists. But
+now, where is that heathen or heretic that must not presently stoop to
+such wire-drawn subtleties, unless he be so thick-skulled that he can't
+apprehend them, or so impudent as to hiss them down, or, being furnished
+with the same tricks, be able to make his party good with them? As if a
+man should set a conjurer on work against a conjurer, or fight with one
+hallowed sword against another, which would prove no other than a work to
+no purpose. For my own part I conceive the Christians would do much
+better if instead of those dull troops and companies of soldiers with
+which they have managed their war with such doubtful success, they would
+send the bawling Scotists, the most obstinate Occamists, and invincible
+Albertists to war against the Turks and Saracens; and they would see, I
+guess, a most pleasant combat and such a victory as was never before. For
+who is so faint whom their devices will not enliven? who so stupid whom
+such spurs can't quicken? or who so quick-sighted before whose eyes they
+can't cast a mist?
+
+But you'll say, I jest. Nor are you without cause, since even among
+divines themselves there are some that have learned better and are ready
+to turn their stomachs at those foolish subtleties of the others. There
+are some that detest them as a kind of sacrilege and count it the height
+of impiety to speak so irreverently of such hidden things, rather to be
+adored than explicated; to dispute of them with such profane and
+heathenish niceties; to define them so arrogantly and pollute the majesty
+of divinity with such pithless and sordid terms and opinions. Meantime
+the others please, nay hug themselves in their happiness, and are so
+taken up with these pleasant trifles that they have not so much leisure
+as to cast the least eye on the Gospel or St. Paul's epistles. And while
+they play the fool at this rate in their schools, they make account the
+universal church would otherwise perish, unless, as the poets fancied of
+Atlas that he supported heaven with his shoulders, they underpropped the
+other with their syllogistical buttresses. And how great a happiness is
+this, think you? while, as if Holy Writ were a nose of wax, they fashion
+and refashion it according to their pleasure; while they require that
+their own conclusions, subscribed by two or three Schoolmen, be accounted
+greater than Solon's laws and preferred before the papal decretals;
+while, as censors of the world, they force everyone to a recantation that
+differs but a hair's breadth from the least of their explicit or implicit
+determinations. And those too they pronounce like oracles. This
+proposition is scandalous; this irreverent; this has a smack of heresy;
+this no very good sound: so that neither baptism, nor the Gospel, nor
+Paul, nor Peter, nor St. Jerome, nor St. Augustine, no nor most
+Aristotelian Thomas himself can make a man a Christian, without these
+bachelors too be pleased to give him his grace. And the like in their
+subtlety in judging; for who would think he were no Christian that should
+say these two speeches "matula putes" and "matula putet," or "ollae
+fervere" and "ollam fervere" were not both good Latin, unless their
+wisdoms had taught us the contrary? who had delivered the church from
+such mists of error, which yet no one ever met with, had they not come
+out with some university seal for it? And are they not most happy while
+they do these things?
+
+Then for what concerns hell, how exactly they describe everything, as if
+they had been conversant in that commonwealth most part of their time!
+Again, how do they frame in their fancy new orbs, adding to those we have
+already an eighth! a goodly one, no doubt, and spacious enough, lest
+perhaps their happy souls might lack room to walk in, entertain their
+friends, and now and then play at football. And with these and a thousand
+the like fopperies their heads are so full stuffed and stretched that I
+believe Jupiter's brain was not near so big when, being in labor with
+Pallas, he was beholding to the midwifery of Vulcan's axe. And therefore
+you must not wonder if in their public disputes they are so bound about
+the head, lest otherwise perhaps their brains might leap out. Nay, I have
+sometimes laughed myself to see them so tower in their own opinion when
+they speak most barbarously; and when they humh and hawh so pitifully
+that none but one of their own tribe can understand them, they call it
+heights which the vulgar can't reach; for they say 'tis beneath the
+dignity of divine mysteries to be cramped and tied up to the narrow rules
+of grammarians: from whence we may conjecture the great prerogative of
+divines, if they only have the privilege of speaking corruptly, in which
+yet every cobbler thinks himself concerned for his share. Lastly, they
+look upon themselves as somewhat more than men as often as they are
+devoutly saluted by the name of "Our Masters," in which they fancy there
+lies as much as in the Jews' "Jehovah;" and therefore they reckon it a
+crime if "Magister Noster" be written other than in capital letters; and
+if anyone should preposterously say "Noster Magister," he has at once
+overturned the whole body of divinity.
+
+And next these come those that commonly call themselves the religious and
+monks, most false in both titles, when both a great part of them are
+farthest from religion, and no men swarm thicker in all places than
+themselves. Nor can I think of anything that could be more miserable did
+not I support them so many several ways. For whereas all men detest them
+to that height, that they take it for ill luck to meet one of them by
+chance, yet such is their happiness that they flatter themselves. For
+first, they reckon it one of the main points of piety if they are so
+illiterate that they can't so much as read. And then when they run over
+their offices, which they carry about them, rather by tale than
+understanding, they believe the gods more than ordinarily pleased with
+their braying. And some there are among them that put off their
+trumperies at vast rates, yet rove up and down for the bread they eat;
+nay, there is scarce an inn, wagon, or ship into which they intrude not,
+to the no small damage of the commonwealth of beggars. And yet, like
+pleasant fellows, with all this vileness, ignorance, rudeness, and
+impudence, they represent to us, for so they call it, the lives of the
+apostles. Yet what is more pleasant than that they do all things by rule
+and, as it were, a kind of mathematics, the least swerving from which
+were a crime beyond forgiveness--as how many knots their shoes must be
+tied with, of what color everything is, what distinction of habits, of
+what stuff made, how many straws broad their girdles and of what fashion,
+how many bushels wide their cowl, how many fingers long their hair, and
+how many hours sleep; which exact equality, how disproportionate it is,
+among such variety of bodies and tempers, who is there that does not
+perceive it? And yet by reason of these fooleries they not only set
+slight by others, but each different order, men otherwise professing
+apostolical charity, despise one another, and for the different wearing
+of a habit, or that 'tis of darker color, they put all things in
+combustion. And among these there are some so rigidly religious that
+their upper garment is haircloth, their inner of the finest linen; and,
+on the contrary, others wear linen without and hair next their skins.
+Others, again, are as afraid to touch money as poison, and yet neither
+forbear wine nor dallying with women. In a word, 'tis their only care
+that none of them come near one another in their manner of living, nor
+do they endeavor how they may be like Christ, but how they may differ
+among themselves.
+
+And another great happiness they conceive in their names, while they call
+themselves Cordiliers, and among these too, some are Colletes, some
+Minors, some Minims, some Crossed; and again, these are Benedictines,
+those Bernardines; these Carmelites, those Augustines; these Williamites,
+and those Jacobines; as if it were not worth the while to be called
+Christians. And of these, a great part build so much on their ceremonies
+and petty traditions of men that they think one heaven is too poor a
+reward for so great merit, little dreaming that the time will come when
+Christ, not regarding any of these trifles, will call them to account for
+His precept of charity. One shall show you a large trough full of all
+kinds of fish; another tumble you out so many bushels of prayers; another
+reckon you so many myriads of fasts, and fetch them up again in one
+dinner by eating till he cracks again; another produces more bundles of
+ceremonies than seven of the stoutest ships would be able to carry;
+another brags he has not touched a penny these three score years without
+two pair of gloves at least upon his hands; another wears a cowl so lined
+with grease that the poorest tarpaulin would not stoop to take it up;
+another will tell you he has lived these fifty-five years like a sponge,
+continually fastened to the same place; another is grown hoarse with his
+daily chanting; another has contracted a lethargy by his solitary living;
+and another the palsy in his tongue for want of speaking. But Christ,
+interrupting them in their vanities, which otherwise were endless, will
+ask them, "Whence this new kind of Jews? I acknowledge one commandment,
+which is truly mine, of which alone I hear nothing. I promised, 'tis
+true, my Father's heritage, and that without parables, not to cowls, odd
+prayers, and fastings, but to the duties of faith and charity. Nor can I
+acknowledge them that least acknowledge their faults. They that would
+seem holier than myself, let them if they like possess to themselves
+those three hundred sixty-five heavens of Basilides the heretic's
+invention, or command them whose foolish traditions they have preferred
+before my precepts to erect them a new one." When they shall hear these
+things and see common ordinary persons preferred before them, with what
+countenance, think you, will they behold one another? In the meantime
+they are happy in their hopes, and for this also they are beholding
+to me.
+
+And yet these kind of people, though they are as it were of another
+commonwealth, no man dares despise, especially those begging friars,
+because they are privy to all men's secrets by means of confessions, as
+they call them. Which yet were no less than treason to discover, unless,
+being got drunk, they have a mind to be pleasant, and then all comes out,
+that is to say by hints and conjectures but suppressing the names. But if
+anyone should anger these wasps, they'll sufficiently revenge themselves
+in their public sermons and so point out their enemy by circumlocutions
+that there's no one but understands whom 'tis they mean, unless he
+understand nothing at all; nor will they give over their barking till you
+throw the dogs a bone. And now tell me, what juggler or mountebank you
+had rather behold than hear them rhetorically play the fool in their
+preachments, and yet most sweetly imitating what rhetoricians have
+written touching the art of good speaking? Good God! what several
+postures they have! How they shift their voice, sing out their words,
+skip up and down, and are ever and anon making such new faces that they
+confound all things with noise! And yet this knack of theirs is no less a
+mystery that runs in succession from one brother to another; which though
+it be not lawful for me to know, however I'll venture at it by
+conjectures. And first they invoke whatever they have scraped from the
+poets; and in the next place, if they are to discourse of charity, they
+take their rise from the river Nilus; or to set out the mystery of the
+cross, from bell and the dragon; or to dispute of fasting, from the
+twelve signs of the zodiac; or, being to preach of faith, ground their
+matter on the square of a circle.
+
+I have heard myself one, and he no small fool--I was mistaken, I would
+have said scholar--that being in a famous assembly explaining the mystery
+of the Trinity, that he might both let them see his learning was not
+ordinary and withal satisfy some theological ears, he took a new way, to
+wit from the letters, syllables, and the word itself; then from the
+coherence of the nominative case and the verb, and the adjective and
+substantive: and while most of the audience wondered, and some of them
+muttered that of Horace, "What does all this trumpery drive at?" at last
+he brought the matter to this head, that he would demonstrate that the
+mystery of the Trinity was so clearly expressed in the very rudiments of
+grammar that the best mathematician could not chalk it out more plainly.
+And in this discourse did this most superlative theologian beat his
+brains for eight whole months that at this hour he's as blind as a
+beetle, to wit, all the sight of his eyes being run into the sharpness of
+his wit. But for all that he thinks nothing of his blindness, rather
+taking the same for too cheap a price of such a glory as he won thereby.
+
+And besides him I met with another, some eighty years of age, and such a
+divine that you'd have sworn Scotus himself was revived in him. He, being
+upon the point of unfolding the mystery of the name Jesus, did with
+wonderful subtlety demonstrate that there lay hidden in those letters
+whatever could be said of him; for that it was only declined with three
+cases, he said, it was a manifest token of the Divine Trinity; and then,
+that the first ended in _S_, the second in _M_, the third in _U_, there
+was in it an ineffable mystery, to wit, those three letters declaring to
+us that he was the beginning, middle, and end (_summum, medium, et
+ultimum_) of all. Nay, the mystery was yet more abstruse; for he so
+mathematically split the word Jesus into two equal parts that he left the
+middle letter by itself, and then told us that that letter in Hebrew was
+_schin_ or _sin_, and that _sin_ in the Scotch tongue, as he remembered,
+signified as much as sin; from whence he gathered that it was Jesus that
+took away the sins of the world. At which new exposition the audience
+were so wonderfully intent and struck with admiration, especially the
+theologians, that there wanted little but that Niobe-like they had been
+turned to stones; whereas the like had almost happened to me, as befell
+the Priapus in Horace. And not without cause, for when were the Grecian
+Demosthenes or Roman Cicero ever guilty of the like? They thought that
+introduction faulty that was wide of the matter, as if it were not the
+way of carters and swineherds that have no more wit than God sent them.
+But these learned men think their preamble, for so they call it, then
+chiefly rhetorical when it has least coherence with the rest of the
+argument, that the admiring audience may in the meanwhile whisper to
+themselves, "What will he be at now?" In the third place, they bring in
+instead of narration some texts of Scripture, but handle them cursorily,
+and as it were by the bye, when yet it is the only thing they should have
+insisted on. And fourthly, as it were changing a part in the play, they
+bolt out with some question in divinity, and many times relating neither
+to earth nor heaven, and this they look upon as a piece of art. Here they
+erect their theological crests and beat into the people's ears those
+magnificent titles of illustrious doctors, subtle doctors, most subtle
+doctors, seraphic doctors, cherubin doctors, holy doctors, unquestionable
+doctors, and the like; and then throw abroad among the ignorant people
+syllogisms, majors, minors, conclusions, corollaries, suppositions, and
+those so weak and foolish that they are below pedantry. There remains yet
+the fifth act in which one would think they should show their mastery.
+And here they bring in some foolish insipid fable out of _Speculum
+Historiale_ or _Gesta Romanorum_ and expound it allegorically,
+tropologically, and anagogically. And after this manner do they and their
+chimera, and such as Horace despaired of compassing when he wrote "Humano
+capiti," etc.
+
+But they have heard from somebody, I know not whom, that the beginning of
+a speech should be sober and grave and least given to noise. And
+therefore they begin theirs at that rate they can scarce hear themselves,
+as if it were not matter whether anyone understood them. They have
+learned somewhere that to move the affections a louder voice is
+requisite. Whereupon they that otherwise would speak like a mouse in a
+cheese start out of a sudden into a downright fury, even there too, where
+there's the least need of it. A man would swear they were past the power
+of hellebore, so little do they consider where 'tis they run out. Again,
+because they have heard that as a speech comes up to something, a man
+should press it more earnestly, they, however they begin, use a strange
+contention of voice in every part, though the matter itself be never so
+flat, and end in that manner as if they'd run themselves out of breath.
+Lastly, they have learned that among rhetoricians there is some mention
+of laughter, and therefore they study to prick in a jest here and there;
+but, O Venus! so void of wit and so little to the purpose that it may be
+truly called an ass's playing on the harp. And sometimes also they use
+somewhat of a sting, but so nevertheless that they rather tickle than
+wound; nor do they ever more truly flatter than when they would seem to
+use the greatest freedom of speech. Lastly, such is their whole action
+that a man would swear they had learned it from our common tumblers,
+though yet they come short of them in every respect. However, they are
+both so like that no man will dispute but that either these learned their
+rhetoric from them, or they theirs from these. And yet they light on some
+that, when they hear them, conceive they hear very Demosthenes and
+Ciceroes: of which sort chiefly are our merchants and women, whose ears
+only they endeavor to please, because as to the first, if they stroke
+them handsomely, some part or other of their ill-gotten goods is wont to
+fall to their share. And the women, though for many other things they
+favor this order, this is not the least, that they commit to their
+breasts whatever discontents they have against their husbands. And now, I
+conceive me, you see how much this kind of people are beholding to me,
+that with their petty ceremonies, ridiculous trifles, and noise exercise
+a kind of tyranny among mankind, believing themselves very Pauls and
+Anthonies.
+
+But I willingly give over these stage-players that are such ingrateful
+dissemblers of the courtesies I have done them and such impudent
+pretenders to religion which they haven't. And now I have a mind to give
+some small touches of princes and courts, of whom I am had in reverence,
+aboveboard and, as it becomes gentlemen, frankly. And truly, if they had
+the least proportion of sound judgment, what life were more unpleasant
+than theirs, or so much to be avoided? For whoever did but truly weigh
+with himself how great a burden lies upon his shoulders that would truly
+discharge the duty of a prince, he would not think it worth his while to
+make his way to a crown by perjury and parricide. He would consider that
+he that takes a scepter in his hand should manage the public, not his
+private, interest; study nothing but the common good; and not in the
+least go contrary to those laws whereof himself is both the author and
+exactor: that he is to take an account of the good or evil administration
+of all his magistrates and subordinate officers; that, though he is but
+one, all men's eyes are upon him, and in his power it is, either like a
+good planet to give life and safety to mankind by his harmless influence,
+or like a fatal comet to send mischief and destruction; that the vices of
+other men are not alike felt, nor so generally communicated; and that a
+prince stands in that place that his least deviation from the rule of
+honesty and honor reaches farther than himself and opens a gap to many
+men's ruin. Besides, that the fortune of princes has many things
+attending it that are but too apt to train them out of the way, as
+pleasure, liberty, flattery, excess; for which cause he should the more
+diligently endeavor and set a watch over himself, lest perhaps he be led
+aside and fail in his duty. Lastly, to say nothing of treasons, ill will,
+and such other mischiefs he's in jeopardy of, that that True King is over
+his head, who in a short time will call him to account for every the
+least trespass, and that so much the more severely by how much more
+mighty was the empire committed to his charge. These and the like if a
+prince should duly weigh, and weigh it he would if he were wise, he would
+neither be able to sleep nor take any hearty repast.
+
+But now by my courtesy they leave all this care to the gods and are only
+taken up with themselves, not admitting anyone to their ear but such as
+know how to speak pleasant things and not trouble them with business.
+They believe they have discharged all the duty of a prince if they hunt
+every day, keep a stable of fine horses, sell dignities and commanderies,
+and invent new ways of draining the citizens' purses and bringing it into
+their own exchequer; but under such dainty new-found names that though
+the thing be most unjust in itself, it carries yet some face of equity;
+adding to this some little sweet'nings that whatever happens, they may be
+secure of the common people. And now suppose someone, such as they
+sometimes are, a man ignorant of laws, little less than an enemy to the
+public good, and minding nothing but his own, given up to pleasure, a
+hater of learning, liberty, and justice, studying nothing less than the
+public safety, but measuring everything by his own will and profit; and
+then put on him a golden chain that declares the accord of all virtues
+linked one to another; a crown set with diamonds, that should put him in
+mind how he ought to excel all others in heroic virtues; besides a
+scepter, the emblem of justice and an untainted heart; and lastly, a
+purple robe, a badge of that charity he owes the commonwealth. All which
+if a prince should compare them with his own life, he would, I believe,
+be clearly ashamed of his bravery, and be afraid lest some or other
+gibing expounder turn all this tragical furniture into a ridiculous
+laughingstock.
+
+And as to the court lords, what should I mention them? than most of whom
+though there be nothing more indebted, more servile, more witless, more
+contemptible, yet they would seem as they were the most excellent of all
+others. And yet in this only thing no men more modest, in that they are
+contented to wear about them gold, jewels, purple, and those other marks
+of virtue and wisdom; but for the study of the things themselves, they
+remit it to others, thinking it happiness enough for them that they can
+call the king master, have learned the cringe _à la mode_, know when and
+where to use those titles of Your Grace, My Lord, Your Magnificence; in a
+word that they are past all shame and can flatter pleasantly. For these
+are the arts that speak a man truly noble and an exact courtier. But if
+you look into their manner of life you'll find them mere sots, as
+debauched as Penelope's wooers; you know the other part of the verse,
+which the echo will better tell you than I can. They sleep till noon and
+have their mercenary Levite come to their bedside, where he chops over
+his matins before they are half up. Then to breakfast, which is scarce
+done but dinner stays for them. From thence they go to dice, tables,
+cards, or entertain themselves with jesters, fools, gambols, and horse
+tricks. In the meantime they have one or two beverages, and then supper,
+and after that a banquet, and 'twere well, by Jupiter, there were no more
+than one. And in this manner do their hours, days, months, years, age
+slide away without the least irksomeness. Nay, I have sometimes gone away
+many inches fatter, to see them speak big words; while each of the ladies
+believes herself so much nearer to the gods by how much the longer train
+she trails after her; while one nobleman edges out another, that he may
+get the nearer to Jupiter himself; and everyone of them pleases himself
+the more by how much more massive is the chain he swags on his shoulders,
+as if he meant to show his strength as well as his wealth.
+
+Nor are princes by themselves in their manner of life, since popes,
+cardinals, and bishops have so diligently followed their steps that
+they've almost got the start of them. For if any of them would consider
+what their Albe should put them in mind of, to wit a blameless life; what
+is meant by their forked miters, whose each point is held in by the same
+knot, we'll suppose it a perfect knowledge of the Old and New Testaments;
+what those gloves on their hands, but a sincere administration of the
+Sacraments, and free from all touch of worldly business; what their
+crosier, but a careful looking after the flock committed to their charge;
+what the cross born before them, but victory over all earthly affections
+--these, I say, and many of the like kind should anyone truly consider,
+would he not live a sad and troublesome life? Whereas now they do well
+enough while they feed themselves only, and for the care of their flock
+either put it over to Christ or lay it all on their suffragans, as they
+call them, or some poor vicars. Nor do they so much as remember their
+name, or what the word bishop signifies, to wit, labor, care, and
+trouble. But in racking to gather money they truly act the part of
+bishops, and herein acquit themselves to be no blind seers.
+
+In like manner cardinals, if they thought themselves the successors of
+the apostles, they would likewise imagine that the same things the other
+did are required of them, and that they are not lords but dispensers of
+spiritual things of which they must shortly give an exact account. But if
+they also would a little philosophize on their habit and think with
+themselves what's the meaning of their linen rochet, is it not a
+remarkable and singular integrity of life? What that inner purple; is it
+not an earnest and fervent love of God? Or what that outward, whose loose
+plaits and long train fall round his Reverence's mule and are large
+enough to cover a camel; is it not charity that spreads itself so wide to
+the succor of all men? that is, to instruct, exhort, comfort, reprehend,
+admonish, compose wars, resist wicked princes, and willingly expend not
+only their wealth but their very lives for the flock of Christ: though
+yet what need at all of wealth to them that supply the room of the poor
+apostles? These things, I say, did they but duly consider, they would not
+be so ambitious of that dignity; or, if they were, they would willingly
+leave it and live a laborious, careful life, such as was that of the
+ancient apostles.
+
+And for popes, that supply the place of Christ, if they should endeavor
+to imitate His life, to wit His poverty, labor, doctrine, cross, and
+contempt of life, or should they consider what the name pope, that is
+father, or holiness, imports, who would live more disconsolate than
+themselves? or who would purchase that chair with all his substance? or
+defend it, so purchased, with swords, poisons, and all force imaginable?
+so great a profit would the access of wisdom deprive him of--wisdom did I
+say? nay, the least corn of that salt which Christ speaks of: so much
+wealth, so much honor, so much riches, so many victories, so many
+offices, so many dispensations, so much tribute, so many pardons; such
+horses, such mules, such guards, and so much pleasure would it lose them.
+You see how much I have comprehended in a little: instead of which it
+would bring in watchings, fastings, tears, prayers, sermons, good
+endeavors, sighs, and a thousand the like troublesome exercises. Nor is
+this least considerable: so many scribes, so many copying clerks, so many
+notaries, so many advocates, so many promoters, so many secretaries, so
+many muleteers, so many grooms, so many bankers: in short, that vast
+multitude of men that overcharge the Roman See--I mistook, I meant honor
+--might beg their bread.
+
+A most inhuman and economical thing, and more to be execrated, that those
+great princes of the Church and true lights of the world should be
+reduced to a staff and a wallet. Whereas now, if there be anything that
+requires their pains, they leave that to Peter and Paul that have leisure
+enough; but if there be anything of honor or pleasure, they take that to
+themselves. By which means it is, yet by my courtesy, that scarce any
+kind of men live more voluptuously or with less trouble; as believing
+that Christ will be well enough pleased if in their mystical and almost
+mimical pontificality, ceremonies, titles of holiness and the like, and
+blessing and cursing, they play the parts of bishops. To work miracles is
+old and antiquated, and not in fashion now; to instruct the people,
+troublesome; to interpret the Scripture, pedantic; to pray, a sign one
+has little else to do; to shed tears, silly and womanish; to be poor,
+base; to be vanquished, dishonorable and little becoming him that scarce
+admits even kings to kiss his slipper; and lastly, to die, uncouth; and
+to be stretched on a cross, infamous.
+
+Theirs are only those weapons and sweet blessings which Paul mentions,
+and of these truly they are bountiful enough: as interdictions, hangings,
+heavy burdens, reproofs, anathemas, executions in effigy, and that
+terrible thunderbolt of excommunication, with the very sight of which
+they sink men's souls beneath the bottom of hell: which yet these most
+holy fathers in Christ and His vicars hurl with more fierceness against
+none than against such as, by the instigation of the devil, attempt to
+lessen or rob them of Peter's patrimony. When, though those words in the
+Gospel, "We have left all, and followed Thee," were his, yet they call
+his patrimony lands, cities, tribute, imposts, riches; for which, being
+enflamed with the love of Christ, they contend with fire and sword, and
+not without loss of much Christian blood, and believe they have then most
+apostolically defended the Church, the spouse of Christ, when the enemy,
+as they call them, are valiantly routed. As if the Church had any
+deadlier enemies than wicked prelates, who not only suffer Christ to run
+out of request for want of preaching him, but hinder his spreading by
+their multitudes of laws merely contrived for their own profit, corrupt
+him by their forced expositions, and murder him by the evil example of
+their pestilent life.
+
+Nay, further, whereas the Church of Christ was founded in blood,
+confirmed by blood, and augmented by blood, now, as if Christ, who after
+his wonted manner defends his people, were lost, they govern all by the
+sword. And whereas war is so savage a thing that it rather befits beasts
+than men, so outrageous that the very poets feigned it came from the
+Furies, so pestilent that it corrupts all men's manners, so unjust that
+it is best executed by the worst of men, so wicked that it has no
+agreement with Christ; and yet, omitting all the other, they make this
+their only business. Here you'll see decrepit old fellows acting the
+parts of young men, neither troubled at their costs, nor wearied with
+their labors, nor discouraged at anything, so they may have the liberty
+of turning laws, religion, peace, and all things else quite topsy-turvy.
+Nor are they destitute of their learned flatterers that call that
+palpable madness zeal, piety, and valor, having found out a new way by
+which a man may kill his brother without the least breach of that charity
+which, by the command of Christ, one Christian owes another. And here, in
+troth, I'm a little at a stand whether the ecclesiastical German electors
+gave them this example, or rather took it from them; who, laying aside
+their habit, benedictions, and all the like ceremonies, so act the part
+of commanders that they think it a mean thing, and least beseeming a
+bishop, to show the least courage to Godward unless it be in a battle.
+
+And as to the common herd of priests, they account it a crime to
+degenerate from the sanctity of their prelates. Heidah! How soldier-like
+they bustle about the _jus divinum_ of titles, and how quick-sighted they
+are to pick the least thing out of the writings of the ancients wherewith
+they may fright the common people and convince them, if possible, that
+more than a tenth is due! Yet in the meantime it least comes in their
+heads how many things are everywhere extant concerning that duty which
+they owe the people. Nor does their shorn crown in the least admonish
+them that a priest should be free from all worldly desires and think of
+nothing but heavenly things. Whereas on the contrary, these jolly fellows
+say they have sufficiently discharged their offices if they but anyhow
+mumble over a few odd prayers, which, so help me, Hercules! I wonder if
+any god either hear or understand, since they do neither themselves,
+especially when they thunder them out in that manner they are wont. But
+this they have in common with those of the heathens, that they are
+vigilant enough to the harvest of their profit, nor is there any of them
+that is not better read in those laws than the Scripture. Whereas if
+there be anything burdensome, they prudently lay that on other men's
+shoulders and shift it from one to the other, as men toss a ball from
+hand to hand, following herein the example of lay princes who commit the
+government of their kingdoms to their grand ministers, and they again to
+others, and leave all study of piety to the common people. In like manner
+the common people put it over to those they call ecclesiastics, as if
+themselves were no part of the Church, or that their vow in baptism had
+lost its obligation. Again, the priests that call themselves secular, as
+if they were initiated to the world, not to Christ, lay the burden on the
+regulars; the regulars on the monks; the monks that have more liberty on
+those that have less; and all of them on the mendicants; the mendicants
+on the Carthusians, among whom, if anywhere, this piety lies buried, but
+yet so close that scarce anyone can perceive it. In like manner the
+popes, the most diligent of all others in gathering in the harvest of
+money, refer all their apostolical work to the bishops, the bishops to
+the parsons, the parsons to the vicars, the vicars to their brother
+mendicants, and they again throw back the care of the flock on those that
+take the wool.
+
+But it is not my business to sift too narrowly the lives of prelates and
+priests for fear I seem to have intended rather a satire than an oration,
+and be thought to tax good princes while I praise the bad. And therefore,
+what I slightly taught before has been to no other end but that it might
+appear that there's no man can live pleasantly unless he be initiated to
+my rites and have me propitious to him. For how can it be otherwise when
+Fortune, the great directress of all human affairs, and myself are so all
+one that she was always an enemy to those wise men, and on the contrary
+so favorable to fools and careless fellows that all things hit luckily
+to them?
+
+You have heard of that Timotheus, the most fortunate general of the
+Athenians, of whom came that proverb, "His net caught fish, though he
+were asleep;" and that "The owl flies;" whereas these others hit
+properly, wise men "born in the fourth month;" and again, "He rides
+Sejanus's his horse;" and "gold of Toulouse," signifying thereby the
+extremity of ill fortune. But I forbear the further threading of
+proverbs, lest I seem to have pilfered my friend Erasmus' adages. Fortune
+loves those that have least wit and most confidence and such as like that
+saying of Caesar, "The die is thrown." But wisdom makes men bashful,
+which is the reason that those wise men have so little to do, unless it
+be with poverty, hunger, and chimney corners; that they live such
+neglected, unknown, and hated lives: whereas fools abound in money, have
+the chief commands in the commonwealth, and in a word, flourish every
+way. For if it be happiness to please princes and to be conversant among
+those golden and diamond gods, what is more unprofitable than wisdom, or
+what is it these kind of men have, may more justly be censured? If wealth
+is to be got, how little good at it is that merchant like to do, if
+following the precepts of wisdom, he should boggle at perjury; or being
+taken in a lie, blush; or in the least regard the sad scruples of those
+wise men touching rapine and usury. Again, if a man sue for honors or
+church preferments, an ass or wild ox shall sooner get them than a wise
+man. If a man's in love with a young wench, none of the least humors in
+this comedy, they are wholly addicted to fools and are afraid of a wise
+man and fly him as they would a scorpion. Lastly, whoever intend to live
+merry and frolic, shut their doors against wise men and admit anything
+sooner. In brief, go whither you will, among prelates, princes, judges,
+magistrates, friends, enemies, from highest to lowest, and you'll find
+all things done by money; which, as a wise man condemns it, so it takes a
+special care not to come near him. What shall I say? There is no measure
+or end of my praises, and yet 'tis fit my oration have an end. And
+therefore I'll even break off; and yet, before I do it, 'twill not be
+amiss if I briefly show you that there has not been wanting even great
+authors that have made me famous, both by their writings and actions,
+lest perhaps otherwise I may seem to have foolishly pleased myself only,
+or that the lawyers charge me that I have proved nothing. After their
+example, therefore, will I allege my proofs, that is to say, nothing to
+the point.
+
+And first, every man allows this proverb, "That where a man wants matter,
+he may best frame some." And to this purpose is that verse which we teach
+children, "'Tis the greatest wisdom to know when and where to counterfeit
+the fool." And now judge yourselves what an excellent thing this folly
+is, whose very counterfeit and semblance only has got such praise from
+the learned. But more candidly does that fat plump "Epicurean bacon-hog,"
+Horace, for so he calls himself, bid us "mingle our purposes with folly;"
+and whereas he adds the word _bravem_, short, perhaps to help out the
+verse, he might as well have let it alone; and again, "'Tis a pleasant
+thing to play the fool in the right season;" and in another place, he had
+rather "be accounted a dotterel and sot than to be wise and made mouths
+at." And Telemachus in Homer, whom the poet praises so much, is now and
+then called _nepios_, fool: and by the same name, as if there were some
+good fortune in it, are the tragedians wont to call boys and striplings.
+And what does that sacred book of Iliads contain but a kind of
+counter-scuffle between foolish kings and foolish people? Besides, how
+absolute is that praise that Cicero gives of it! "All things are full of
+fools." For who does not know that every good, the more diffusive it is,
+by so much the better it is?
+
+But perhaps their authority may be of small credit among Christians.
+We'll therefore, if you please, support our praises with some testimonies
+of Holy Writ also, in the first place, nevertheless, having forespoke our
+theologians that they'll give us leave to do it without offense. And in
+the next, forasmuch as we attempt a matter of some difficulty and it may
+be perhaps a little too saucy to call back again the Muses from Helicon
+to so great a journey, especially in a matter they are wholly strangers
+to, it will be more suitable, perhaps, while I play the divine and make
+my way through such prickly quiddities, that I entreat the soul of
+Scotus, a thing more bristly than either porcupine or hedgehog, to leave
+his scorebone awhile and come into my breast, and then let him go whither
+he pleases, or to the dogs, I could wish also that I might change my
+countenance, or that I had on the square cap and the cassock, for fear
+some or other should impeach me of theft as if I had privily rifled our
+masters' desks in that I have got so much divinity. But it ought not to
+seem so strange if after so long and intimate an acquaintance and
+converse with them I have picked up somewhat; when as that fig-tree-god
+Priapus hearing his owner read certain Greek words took so much notice of
+them that he got them by heart, and that cock in Lucian by having lived
+long among men became at last a master of their language.
+
+But to the point under a fortunate direction. Ecclesiastes says in his
+first chapter, "The number of fools is infinite;" and when he calls it
+infinite, does he not seem to comprehend all men, unless it be some few
+whom yet 'tis a question whether any man ever saw? But more ingeniously
+does Jeremiah in his tenth chapter confess it, saying, "Every man is made
+a fool through his own wisdom;" attributing wisdom to God alone and
+leaving folly to all men else, and again, "Let not man glory in his
+wisdom." And why, good Jeremiah, would you not have a man glory in his
+wisdom? Because, he'll say, he has none at all. But to return to
+Ecclesiastes, who, when he cries out, "Vanity of vanities, all is
+vanity!" what other thoughts had he, do you believe, than that, as I said
+before, the life of man is nothing else but an interlude of folly? In
+which he has added one voice more to that justly received praise of
+Cicero's which I quoted before, viz., "All things are full of fools."
+Again, that wise preacher that said, "A fool changes as the moon, but a
+wise man is permanent as the sun," what else did he hint at in it but
+that all mankind are fools and the name of wise only proper to God? For
+by the moon interpreters understand human nature, and by the sun, God,
+the only fountain of light; with which agrees that which Christ himself
+in the Gospel denies, that anyone is to be called good but one, and that
+is God. And then if he is a fool that is not wise, and every good man
+according to the Stoics is a wise man, it is no wonder if all mankind be
+concluded under folly. Again Solomon, Chapter 15, "Foolishness," says he,
+"is joy to the fool," thereby plainly confessing that without folly there
+is no pleasure in life. To which is pertinent that other, "He that
+increases knowledge, increases grief; and in much understanding there is
+much indignation." And does he not plainly confess as much, Chapter 7,
+"The heart of the wise is where sadness is, but the heart of fools
+follows mirth"? by which you see, he thought it not enough to have
+learned wisdom without he had added the knowledge of me also. And if you
+will not believe me, take his own words, Chapter 1, "I gave my heart to
+know wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly." Where, by the way, 'tis
+worth your remark that he intended me somewhat extraordinary that he
+named me last. A preacher wrote it, and this you know is the order among
+churchmen, that he that is first in dignity comes last in place, as
+mindful, no doubt, whatever they do in other things, herein at least to
+observe the evangelical precept.
+
+Besides, that folly is more excellent than wisdom the son of Sirach,
+whoever he was, clearly witnesses, Chapter 44, whose words, so help me,
+Hercules! I shall not once utter before you meet my induction with a
+suitable answer, according to the manner of those in Plato that dispute
+with Socrates. What things are more proper to be laid up with care, such
+as are rare and precious, or such as are common and of no account? Why do
+you give me no answer? Well, though you should dissemble, the Greek
+proverb will answer for you, "Foul water is thrown out of doors;" which,
+if any man shall be so ungracious as to condemn, let him know 'tis
+Aristotle's, the god of our masters. Is there any of you so very a fool
+as to leave jewels and gold in the street? In truth, I think not; in the
+most secret part of your house; nor is that enough; if there be any
+drawer in your iron chests more private than other, there you lay them;
+but dirt you throw out of doors. And therefore, if you so carefully lay
+up such things as you value and throw away what's vile and of no worth,
+is it not plain that wisdom, which he forbids a man to hide, is of less
+account than folly, which he commands him to cover? Take his own words,
+"Better is the man that hideth his folly than he that hideth his wisdom."
+Or what is that, when he attributes an upright mind without craft or
+malice to a fool, when a wise man the while thinks no man like himself?
+For so I understand that in his tenth chapter, "A fool walking by the
+way, being a fool himself, supposes all men to be fools like him." And is
+it not a sign of great integrity to esteem every man as good as himself,
+and when there is no one that leans not too much to other way, to be so
+frank yet as to divide his praises with another? Nor was this great king
+ashamed of the name when he says of himself that he is more foolish than
+any man. Nor did Paul, that great doctor of the Gentiles, writing to the
+Corinthians, unwillingly acknowledge it; "I speak," says he, "like a
+fool. I am more." As if it could be any dishonor to excel in folly.
+
+But here I meet with a great noise of some that endeavor to peck out the
+crows' eyes; that is, to blind the doctors of our times and smoke out
+their eyes with new annotations; among whom my friend Erasmus, whom for
+honor's sake I often mention, deserves if not the first place yet
+certainly the second. O most foolish instance, they cry, and well
+becoming Folly herself! The apostle's meaning was wide enough from what
+you dream; for he spoke it not in this sense, that he would have them
+believe him a greater fool than the rest, but when he had said, "They are
+ministers of Christ, the same am I," and by way of boasting herein had
+equaled himself with to others, he added this by way of correction or
+checking himself, "I am more," as meaning that he was not only equal to
+the rest of the apostles in the work of the Gospel, but somewhat
+superior. And therefore, while he would have this received as a truth,
+lest nevertheless it might not relish their ears as being spoken with too
+much arrogance, he foreshortened his argument with the vizard of folly,
+"I speak like a fool," because he knew it was the prerogative of fools to
+speak what they like, and that too without offense. Whatever he thought
+when he wrote this, I leave it to them to discuss; for my own part, I
+follow those fat, fleshy, and vulgarly approved doctors, with whom, by
+Jupiter! a great part of the learned had rather err than follow them that
+understand the tongues, though they are never so much in the right. Not
+any of them make greater account of those smatterers at Greek than if
+they were daws. Especially when a no small professor, whose name I
+wittingly conceal lest those choughs should chatter at me that Greek
+proverb I have so often mentioned, "an ass at a harp," discoursing
+magisterially and theologically on this text, "I speak as a fool, I am
+more," drew a new thesis; and, which without the height of logic he could
+never have done, made this new subdivision--for I'll give you his own
+words, not only in form but matter also--"I speak like a fool," that is,
+if you look upon me as a fool for comparing myself with those false
+apostles, I shall seem yet a greater fool by esteeming myself before
+them; though the same person a little after, as forgetting himself, runs
+off to another matter.
+
+But why do I thus staggeringly defend myself with one single instance? As
+if it were not the common privilege of divines to stretch heaven, that is
+Holy Writ, like a cheverel; and when there are many things in St. Paul
+that thwart themselves, which yet in their proper place do well enough if
+there be any credit to be given to St. Jerome that was master of five
+tongues. Such was that of his at Athens when having casually espied the
+inscription of that altar, he wrested it into an argument to prove the
+Christian faith, and leaving out all the other words because they made
+against him, took notice only of the two last, viz., "To the unknown
+God;" and those too not without some alteration, for the whole
+inscription was thus: "To the Gods of Asia, Europe, and Africa; To the
+unknown and strange Gods." And according to his example do the sons of
+the prophets, who, forcing out here and there four or five expressions
+and if need be corrupting the sense, wrest it to their own purpose;
+though what goes before and follows after make nothing to the matter in
+hand, nay, be quite against it. Which yet they do with so happy an
+impudence that oftentimes the civilians envy them that faculty.
+
+For what is it in a manner they may not hope for success in, when this
+great doctor (I had almost bolted out his name, but that I once again
+stand in fear of the Greek proverb) has made a construction on an
+expression of Luke, so agreeable to the mind of Christ as are fire and
+water to one another. For when the last point of danger was at hand, at
+which time retainers and dependents are wont in a more special manner to
+attend their protectors, to examine what strength they have, and prepare
+for the encounter, Christ, intending to take out of his disciples' minds
+all trust and confidence in such like defense, demands of them whether
+they wanted anything when he sent them forth so unprovided for a journey
+that they had neither shoes to defend their feet from the injuries of
+stones and briars nor the provision of a scrip to preserve them from
+hunger. And when they had denied that they wanted anything, he adds, "But
+now, he that hath a bag, let him take it, and likewise a scrip; and he
+that hath none, let him sell his coat and buy a sword." And now when the
+sum of all that Christ taught pressed only meekness, suffering, and
+contempt of life, who does not clearly perceive what he means in this
+place? to wit, that he might the more disarm his ministers, that
+neglecting not only shoes and scrip but throwing away their very coat,
+they might, being in a manner naked, the more readily and with less
+hindrance take in hand the work of the Gospel, and provide themselves of
+nothing but a sword, not such as thieves and murderers go up and down
+with, but the sword of the spirit that pierces the most inward parts, and
+so cuts off as it were at one blow all earthly affections, that they mind
+nothing but their duty to God. But see, I pray, whither this famous
+theologian wrests it. By the sword he interprets defense against
+persecution, and by the bag sufficient provision to carry it on. As if
+Christ having altered his mind, in that he sent out his disciples not so
+royally attended as he should have done, repented himself of his former
+instructions: or as forgetting that he had said, "Blessed are ye when ye
+are evil spoken of, despised, and persecuted, etc.," and forbade them to
+resist evil; for that the meek in spirit, not the proud, are blessed: or,
+lest remembering, I say, that he had compared them to sparrows and
+lilies, thereby minding them what small care they should take for the
+things of this life, was so far now from having them go forth without a
+sword that he commanded them to get one, though with the sale of their
+coat, and had rather they should go naked than want a brawling-iron by
+their sides. And to this, as under the word "sword" he conceives to be
+comprehended whatever appertains to the repelling of injuries, so under
+that of "scrip" he takes in whatever is necessary to the support of life.
+And so does this deep interpreter of the divine meaning bring forth the
+apostles to preach the doctrine of a crucified Christ, but furnished at
+all points with lances, slings, quarterstaffs, and bombards; lading them
+also with bag and baggage, lest perhaps it might not be lawful for them
+to leave their inn unless they were empty and fasting. Nor does he take
+the least notice of this, that he so willed the sword to be bought,
+reprehends it a little after and commands it to be sheathed; and that it
+was never heard that the apostles ever used or swords or bucklers against
+the Gentiles, though 'tis likely they had done it, if Christ had ever
+intended, as this doctor interprets.
+
+There is another, too, whose name out of respect I pass by, a man of no
+small repute, who from those tents which Habakkuk mentions, "The tents of
+the land of Midian shall tremble," drew this exposition, that it was
+prophesied of the skin of Saint Bartholomew who was flayed alive. And
+why, forsooth, but because those tents were covered with skins? I was
+lately myself at a theological dispute, for I am often there, where when
+one was demanding what authority there was in Holy Writ that commands
+heretics to be convinced by fire rather than reclaimed by argument; a
+crabbed old fellow, and one whose supercilious gravity spoke him at least
+a doctor, answered in a great fume that Saint Paul had decreed it, who
+said, "Reject him that is a heretic, after once or twice admonition." And
+when he had sundry times, one after another, thundered out the same
+thing, and most men wondered what ailed the man, at last he explained it
+thus, making two words of one. "A heretic must be put to death." Some
+laughed, and yet there wanted not others to whom this exposition seemed
+plainly theological; which, when some, though those very few, opposed,
+they cut off the dispute, as we say, with a hatchet, and the credit of so
+uncontrollable an author. "Pray conceive me," said he, "it is written,
+'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' But every heretic bewitches the
+people; therefore, etc." And now, as many as were present admired the
+man's wit, and consequently submitted to his decision of the question.
+Nor came it into any of their heads that that law concerned only
+fortunetellers, enchanters, and magicians, whom the Hebrews call in their
+tongue "Mecaschephim," witches or sorcerers: for otherwise, perhaps,
+by the same reason it might as well have extended to fornication
+and drunkenness.
+
+But I foolishly run on in these matters, though yet there are so many of
+them that neither Chrysippus' nor Didymus' volumes are large enough to
+contain them. I would only desire you to consider this, that if so great
+doctors may be allowed this liberty, you may the more reasonably pardon
+even me also, a raw, effeminate divine, if I quote not everything so
+exactly as I should. And so at last I return to Paul. "Ye willingly,"
+says he, "suffer my foolishness," and again, "Take me as a fool," and
+further, "I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly," and
+in another place, "We are fools for Christ's sake." You have heard from
+how great an author how great praises of folly; and to what other end,
+but that without doubt he looked upon it as that one thing both necessary
+and profitable. "If anyone among ye," says he, "seem to be wise, let him
+be a fool that he may be wise." And in Luke, Jesus called those two
+disciples with whom he joined himself upon the way, "fools." Nor can I
+give you any reason why it should seem so strange when Saint Paul imputes
+a kind of folly even to God himself. "The foolishness of God," says he,
+"is wiser than men." Though yet I must confess that origin upon the place
+denies that this foolishness may be resembled to the uncertain judgment
+of men; of which kind is, that "the preaching of the cross is to them
+that perish foolishness."
+
+But why am I so careful to no purpose that I thus run on to prove my
+matter by so many testimonies? when in those mystical Psalms Christ
+speaking to the Father says openly, "Thou knowest my foolishness." Nor is
+it without ground that fools are so acceptable to God. The reason perhaps
+may be this, that as princes carry a suspicious eye upon those that are
+over-wise, and consequently hate them--as Caesar did Brutus and Cassius,
+when he feared not in the least drunken Antony; so Nero, Seneca; and
+Dionysius, Plato--and on the contrary are delighted in those blunter and
+unlabored wits, in like manner Christ ever abhors and condemns those wise
+men and such as put confidence in their own wisdom. And this Paul makes
+clearly out when he said, "God hath chosen the foolish things of this
+world," as well knowing it had been impossible to have reformed it by
+wisdom. Which also he sufficiently declares himself, crying out by the
+mouth of his prophet, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and cast
+away the understanding of the prudent."
+
+And again, when Christ gives Him thanks that He had concealed the mystery
+of salvation from the wise, but revealed it to babes and sucklings, that
+is to say, fools. For the Greek word for babes is fools, which he opposes
+to the word wise men. To this appertains that throughout the Gospel you
+find him ever accusing the Scribes and Pharisees and doctors of the law,
+but diligently defending the ignorant multitude (for what other is that
+"Woe to ye Scribes and Pharisees" than woe to you, you wise men?), but
+seems chiefly delighted in little children, women, and fishers. Besides,
+among brute beasts he is best pleased with those that have least in them
+of the foxes' subtlety. And therefore he chose rather to ride upon an ass
+when, if he had pleased, he might have bestrode the lion without danger.
+And the Holy Ghost came down in the shape of a dove, not of an eagle or
+kite. Add to this that in Scripture there is frequent mention of harts,
+hinds, and lambs; and such as are destined to eternal life are called
+sheep, than which creature there is not anything more foolish, if we may
+believe that proverb of Aristotle "sheepish manners," which he tells us
+is taken from the foolishness of that creature and is used to be applied
+to dull-headed people and lack-wits. And yet Christ professes to be the
+shepherd of this flock and is himself delighted with the name of a lamb;
+according to Saint John, "Behold the Lamb of God!" Of which also there is
+much mention in the Revelation. And what does all this drive at, but that
+all mankind are fools--nay, even the very best?
+
+And Christ himself, that he might the better relieve this folly, being
+the wisdom of the Father, yet in some manner became a fool when taking
+upon him the nature of man, he was found in shape as a man; as in like
+manner he was made sin that he might heal sinners. Nor did he work this
+cure any other way than by the foolishness of the cross and a company of
+fat apostles, not much better, to whom also he carefully recommended
+folly but gave them a caution against wisdom and drew them together by
+the example of little children, lilies, mustard-seed, and sparrows,
+things senseless and inconsiderable, living only by the dictates of
+nature and without either craft or care. Besides, when he forbade them to
+be troubled about what they should say before governors and straightly
+charged them not to inquire after times and seasons, to wit, that they
+might not trust to their own wisdom but wholly depend on him. And to the
+same purpose is it that that great Architect of the World, God, gave man
+an injunction against his eating of the Tree of Knowledge, as if
+knowledge were the bane of happiness; according to which also, St. Paul
+disallows it as puffing up and destructive; whence also St. Bernard seems
+in my opinion to follow when he interprets that mountain whereon Lucifer
+had fixed his habitation to be the mountain of knowledge.
+
+Nor perhaps ought I to omit this other argument, that Folly is so
+gracious above that her errors are only pardoned, those of wise men
+never. Whence it is that they that ask forgiveness, though they offend
+never so wittingly, cloak it yet with the excuse of folly. So Aaron, in
+Numbers, if I mistake not the book, when he sues unto Moses concerning
+his sister's leprosy, "I beseech thee, my Lord, not to lay this sin upon
+us, which we have foolishly committed." So Saul makes his excuse of
+David, "For behold," says he, "I did it foolishly." And again, David
+himself thus sweetens God, "And therefore I beseech thee, O Lord, to take
+away the trespass of thy servant, for I have done foolishly," as if he
+knew there was no pardon to be obtained unless he had colored his offense
+with folly and ignorance. And stronger is that of Christ upon the cross
+when he prayed for his enemies, "Father, forgive them," nor does he cover
+their crime with any other excuse than that of unwittingness--because,
+says he, "they know not what they do." In like manner Paul, writing to
+Timothy, "But therefore I obtained mercy, for that I did it ignorantly
+through unbelief." And what is the meaning of "I did it ignorantly" but
+that I did it out of folly, not malice? And what of "Therefore I received
+mercy" but that I had not obtained it had I not been made more allowable
+through the covert of folly? For us also makes that mystical Psalmist,
+though I remembered it not in its right place, "Remember not the sins of
+my youth nor my ignorances." You see what two things he pretends, to wit,
+youth, whose companion I ever am, and ignorances, and that in the plural
+number, a number of multitude, whereby we are to understand that there
+was no small company of them.
+
+But not to run too far in that which is infinite. To speak briefly, all
+Christian religion seems to have a kind of alliance with folly and in no
+respect to have any accord with wisdom. Of which if you expect proofs,
+consider first that boys, old men, women, and fools are more delighted
+with religious and sacred things than others, and to that purpose are
+ever next the altars; and this they do by mere impulse of nature. And in
+the next place, you see that those first founders of it were plain,
+simple persons and most bitter enemies of learning. Lastly there are no
+sort of fools seem more out of the way than are these whom the zeal of
+Christian religion has once swallowed up; so that they waste their
+estates, neglect injuries, suffer themselves to be cheated, put no
+difference between friends and enemies, abhor pleasure, are crammed with
+poverty, watchings, tears, labors, reproaches, loathe life, and wish
+death above all things; in short, they seem senseless to common
+understanding, as if their minds lived elsewhere and not in their own
+bodies; which, what else is it than to be mad? For which reason you must
+not think it so strange if the apostles seemed to be drunk with new wine,
+and if Paul appeared to Festus to be mad.
+
+But now, having once gotten on the lion's skin, go to, and I'll show you
+that this happiness of Christians, which they pursue with so much toil,
+is nothing else but a kind of madness and folly; far be it that my words
+should give any offense, rather consider my matter. And first, the
+Christians and Platonists do as good as agree in this, that the soul is
+plunged and fettered in the prison of the body, by the grossness of which
+it is so tied up and hindered that it cannot take a view of or enjoy
+things as they truly are; and for that cause their master defines
+philosophy to be a contemplation of death, because it takes off the mind
+from visible and corporeal objects, than which death does no more. And
+therefore, as long as the soul uses the organs of the body in that right
+manner it ought, so long it is said to be in good state and condition;
+but when, having broken its fetters, it endeavors to get loose and
+assays, as it were, a flight out of that prison that holds it in, they
+call it madness; and if this happen through any distemper or
+indisposition of the organs, then, by the common consent of every man,
+'tis downright madness. And yet we see such kind of men foretell things
+to come, understand tongues and letters they never learned before, and
+seem, as it were, big with a kind of divinity. Nor is it to be doubted
+but that it proceeds from hence, that the mind, being somewhat at liberty
+from the infection of the body, begins to put forth itself in its native
+vigor. And I conceive 'tis from the same cause that the like often
+happens to sick men a little before their death, that they discourse in
+strain above mortality as if they were inspired. Again, if this happens
+upon the score of religion, though perhaps it may not be the same kind of
+madness, yet 'tis so near it that a great many men would judge it no
+better, especially when a few inconsiderable people shall differ from the
+rest of the world in the whole course of their life. And therefore it
+fares with them as, according to the fiction of Plato, happens to those
+that being cooped up in a cave stand gaping with admiration at the
+shadows of things; and that fugitive who, having broke from them and
+returning to them again, told them he had seen things truly as they were,
+and that they were the most mistaken in believing there was nothing but
+pitiful shadows. For as this wise man pitied and bewailed their palpable
+madness that were possessed with so gross an error, so they in return
+laughed at him as a doting fool and cast him out of their company. In
+like manner the common sort of men chiefly admire those things that are
+most corporeal and almost believe there is nothing beyond them. Whereas
+on the contrary, these devout persons, by how much the nearer anything
+concerns the body, by so much more they neglect it and are wholly hurried
+away with the contemplation of things invisible. For the one give the
+first place to riches, the next to their corporeal pleasures, leaving the
+last place to their soul, which yet most of them do scarce believe,
+because they can't see it with their eyes. On the contrary, the others
+first rely wholly on God, the most unchangeable of all things; and next
+him, yet on this that comes nearest him, they bestow the second on their
+soul; and lastly, for their body, they neglect that care and condemn and
+fly money as superfluity that may be well spared; or if they are forced
+to meddle with any of these things, they do it carelessly and much
+against their wills, having as if they had it not, and possessing as if
+they possessed it not.
+
+There are also in each several things several degrees wherein they
+disagree among themselves. And first as to the senses, though all of them
+have more or less affinity with the body, yet of these some are more
+gross and blockish, as tasting, hearing, seeing, smelling, touching; some
+more removed from the body, as memory, intellect, and the will. And
+therefore to which of these the mind applies itself, in that lies its
+force. But holy men, because the whole bent of their minds is taken up
+with those things that are most repugnant to these grosser senses, they
+seem brutish and stupid in the common use of them. Whereas on the
+contrary, the ordinary sort of people are best at these, and can do least
+at the other; from whence it is, as we have heard, that some of these
+holy men have by mistake drunk oil for wine. Again, in the affections of
+the mind, some have a greater commerce with the body than others, as
+lust, desire of meat and sleep, anger, pride, envy; with which holy men
+are at irreconcilable enmity, and contrary, the common people think
+there's no living without them. And lastly there are certain middle kind
+of affections, and as it were natural to every man, as the love of one's
+country, children, parents, friends, and to which the common people
+attribute no small matter; whereas the other strive to pluck them out of
+their mind: unless insomuch as they arrive to that highest part of the
+soul, that they love their parents not as parents--for what did they get
+but the body? though yet we owe it to God, not them--but as good men or
+women and in whom shines the image of that highest wisdom which alone
+they call the chiefest good, and out of which, they say, there is nothing
+to be beloved or desired.
+
+And by the same rule do they measure all things else, so that they make
+less account of whatever is visible, unless it be altogether
+contemptible, than of those things which they cannot see. But they say
+that in Sacraments and other religious duties there is both body and
+spirit. As in fasting they count it not enough for a man to abstain from
+eating, which the common people take for an absolute fast, unless there
+be also a lessening of his depraved affections: as that he be less angry,
+less proud, than he was wont, that the spirit, being less clogged with
+its bodily weight, may be the more intent upon heavenly things. In like
+manner, in the Eucharist, though, say they, it is not to be esteemed the
+less that 'tis administered with ceremonies, yet of itself 'tis of little
+effect, if not hurtful, unless that which is spiritual be added to it, to
+wit, that which is represented under those visible signs. Now the death
+of Christ is represented by it, which all men, vanquishing, abolishing,
+and, as it were, burying their carnal affections, ought to express in
+their lives and conversations that they may grow up to a newness of life
+and be one with him and the same one among another. This a holy man does,
+and in this is his only meditation. Whereas on the contrary, the common
+people think there's no more in that sacrifice than to be present at the
+altar and crowd next it, to have a noise of words and look upon the
+ceremonies. Nor in this alone, which we only proposed by way of example,
+but in all his life, and without hypocrisy, does a holy man fly those
+things that have any alliance with the body and is wholly ravished with
+things eternal, invisible, and spiritual. For which cause there's so
+great contrarity of opinion between them, and that too in everything,
+that each party thinks the other out of their wits; though that
+character, in my judgment, better agrees with those holy men than the
+common people: which yet will be more clear if, as I promised, I briefly
+show you that that great reward they so much fancy is nothing else but a
+kind of madness.
+
+And therefore suppose that Plato dreamed of somewhat like it when he
+called the madness of lovers the most happy condition of all others. For
+he that's violently in love lives not in his own body but in the thing he
+loves; and by how much the farther he runs from himself into another, by
+so much the greater is his pleasure. And then, when the mind strives to
+rove from its body and does not rightly use its own organs, without doubt
+you may say 'tis downright madness and not be mistaken, or otherwise
+what's the meaning of those common sayings, "He does not dwell at home,"
+"Come to yourself," "He's his own man again"? Besides, the more perfect
+and true his love is, the more pleasant is his madness. And therefore,
+what is that life hereafter, after which these holy minds so pantingly
+breathe, like to be? To wit, the spirit shall swallow up the body, as
+conqueror and more durable; and this it shall do with the greater ease
+because heretofore, in its lifetime, it had cleansed and thinned it into
+such another nothing as itself. And then the spirit again shall be
+wonderfully swallowed up by the highest mind, as being more powerful than
+infinite parts; so that the whole man is to be out of himself nor to be
+otherwise happy in any respect, but that being stripped of himself, he
+shall participate of somewhat ineffable from that chiefest good that
+draws all things into itself. And this happiness though 'tis only then
+perfected when souls being joined to their former bodies shall be made
+immortal, yet forasmuch as the life of holy men is nothing but a
+continued meditation and, as it were, shadow of that life, it so happens
+that at length they have some taste or relish of it; which, though it be
+but as the smallest drop in comparison of that fountain of eternal
+happiness, yet it far surpasses all worldly delight, though all the
+pleasures of all mankind were all joined together. So much better are
+things spiritual than things corporeal, and things invisible than things
+visible; which doubtless is that which the prophet promises: "The eye
+hath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of
+man to consider what God has provided for them that love Him." And this
+is that Mary's better part which is not taken away by change of life,
+but perfected.
+
+And therefore they that are sensible of it, and few there are to whom
+this happens, suffer a kind of somewhat little differing from madness;
+for they utter many things that do not hang together, and that too not
+after the manner of men but make a kind of sound which they neither heed
+themselves, nor is it understood by others, and change the whole figure
+of their countenance, one while jocund, another while dejected, now
+weeping, then laughing, and again sighing. And when they come to
+themselves, tell you they know not where they have been, whether in the
+body or out of the body, or sleeping; nor do they remember what they have
+heard, seen, spoken, or done, and only know this, as it were in a mist or
+dream, that they were the most happy while they were so out of their
+wits. And therefore they are sorry they are come to themselves again and
+desire nothing more than this kind of madness, to be perpetually mad. And
+this is a small taste of that future happiness.
+
+But I forget myself and run beyond my bounds. Though yet, if I shall seem
+to have spoken anything more boldly or impertinently than I ought, be
+pleased to consider that not only Folly but a woman said it; remembering
+in the meantime that Greek proverb, "Sometimes a fool may speak a word in
+season," unless perhaps you expect an epilogue, but give me leave to tell
+you you are mistaken if you think I remember anything of what I have
+said, having foolishly bolted out such a hodgepodge of words. 'Tis an old
+proverb, "I hate one that remembers what's done over the cup." This is a
+new one of my own making: I hate a man that remembers what he hears.
+Wherefore farewell, clap your hands, live and drink lustily, my most
+excellent disciples of Folly.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Praise of Folly, by Desiderius Erasmus
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRAISE OF FOLLY ***
+
+This file should be named 8efly10.txt or 8efly10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8efly11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8efly10a.txt
+
+Produced by Robert Shimmin and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+
diff --git a/old/8efly10.zip b/old/8efly10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..72ca0b6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/8efly10.zip