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IN PRAISE OF FOLLY

By Erasmus

Illustrated with many curious CUTS, Designed, Drawn, and Etched by HansHolbein, WITH PORTRAIT, LIFE OF ERASMUS, AND HIS

Epistle addressed to Sir Thomas More. 

LONDON: REEVES & TURNER, 196, STRAND, W. C. 

1876. 

THE LIFE OF ERASMUS. 

ERASMUS, so deservedly famous for his admirable writings, the vastextent of his learning, his great candour and moderation, and for beingone of the chief restorers of the Latin tongue on this side the Alps, was born at Rotterdam, on the 28th of October, in the year 1467. Theanonymous author of his life commonly printed with his Colloquies (ofthe London edition) is pleased to tell us that _de anno quo natus estapud Batavos, non constat_. And if he himself wrote the life which wefind before the Elzevir edition, said to be _Erasmo autore_, he does notparticularly mention the year in which he was born, but places it _circaannum 67 supra millesintum quadringentesimum_. Another Latin life, whichis prefixed to the above-mentioned London edition, fixes it in the year1465; as does his epitaph at Basil. But as the inscription on his statueat Rotterdam, the place of his nativity, may reasonably be supposed themost authentic, we have followed that. His mother was the daughter of aphysician at Sevenbergen in Holland, with whom his father contracted anacquaintance, and had correspondence with her on promise of marriage, and was actually contracted to her. His father's name was Gerard; hewas the youngest of ten brothers, without one sister coming between; forwhich reason his parents (according to the superstition of the times)designed to consecrate him to the church. His brothers liked the notion, because, as the church then governed all, they hoped, if he rose inhis profession, to have a sure friend to advance their interest; butno importunities could prevail on Gerard to turn ecclesiastic Findinghimself continually pressed upon so disagreeable a subject, and not ablelonger to bear it, he was forced to fly from his native country, leavinga letter for his friends, in which he acquainted them with the reason ofhis departure, and that he should never trouble them any more. Thus heleft her who was to be his wife big with child, and made the best ofhis way to Rome. Being an admirable master of the pen, he made a verygenteel livelihood by transcribing most authors of note (for printingwas not in use). He for some time lived at large, but afterwards appliedclose to study, made great progress in the Greek and Latin languages, and in the civil law; for Rome at that time was full of learned men. When his friends knew he was at Rome, they sent him word that the younggentlewoman whom he had courted for a wife was dead; upon which, in amelancholy fit, he took orders, and turned his thoughts wholly to thestudy of divinity. He returned to his own country, and found to hisgrief that he had been imposed upon; but it was too late to think ofmarriage, so he dropped all farther pretensions to his mistress; norwould she after this unlucky adventure be induced to marry. 

The son took the name of Gerard after his father, which in Germansignifies _amiable_, and (after the fashion of the learned men of thatage, who affected to give their names a Greek or Latin turn) his wasturned into Erasmus, which in Greek has the same signification. He waschorister of the cathedral church of Utrecht till he was nine yearsold; after which he was sent to Deventer to be instructed by the famousAlexander Hegius, a Westphalian. Under so able a master he provedan extraordinary proficient; and it is remarkable that he had such astrength of memory as to be able to say all Terence and Horace by heart. He was now arrived to the thirteenth year of his age, and had beencontinually under the watchful eye of his mother, who died of the plaguethen raging at Deventer. The contagion daily increasing, and havingswept away the family where he boarded, he was obliged to return home. His father Gerard was so concerned at her death that he grew melancholy, and died soon after: neither of his parents being much above forty whenthey died. 

Erasmus had three guardians assigned him, the chief of whom was PeterWinkel, schoolmaster of Goude; and the fortune left him was amplysufficient for his support, if his executors had faithfully dischargedtheir trust Although he was fit for the university, his guardians wereaverse to sending him there, as they designed him for a monastic life, and therefore removed him to Bois-le-duc, where, he says, he lost nearthree years, living in a Franciscan convent The professor of humanity inthis convent, admiring his rising genius, daily importuned him to takethe habit, and be of their order. Erasmus had no great inclination forthe cloister; not that he had the least dislike to the severities ofa pious life, but he could not reconcile himself to the monasticprofession; he therefore urged his rawness of age, and desired fartherto consider better of the matter. The plague spreading in those parts, and he having struggled a long time with a quartan ague, obliged him toreturn home. 

His guardians employed those about him to use all manner of arguments toprevail on him to enter the order of monk; sometimes threatening, and atother times making use of flattery and fair speeches. When Winkel, hisguardian, found him not to be moved from his resolution, he toldhim that he threw up his guardianship from that moment Young Erasmusreplied, that he took him at his word, since he was old enough now tolook out for himself. When Winkel found that threats did not avail, heemployed his brother, who was the other guardian, to see what he couldeffect by fair means. Thus he was surrounded by them and their agentson all sides. By mere accident, Erasmus went to visit a religious housebelonging to the same order, in Emaus or Steyn, near Goude, where he metwith one Cornelius, who had been his companion at Deventer; and thoughhe had not himself taken the habit, he was perpetually preaching up theadvantages of a religious life, as the convenience of noble libraries, the helps of learned conversation, retirement from the noise and follyof the world, and the like. Thus at last he was induced to pitch uponthis convent. Upon his admission they fed him with great promises, toengage him to take the holy cloth; and though he found almost everythingfall short of his expectation, yet his necessities, and the usage he wasthreatened with if he abandoned their order, prevailed with him, afterhis year of probation, to profess himself a member of their fraternity. Not long after this, he had the honour to be known to Henry a Bergis, bishop of Cambray, who having some hopes of obtaining a cardinal's hat, wanted one perfectly master of Latin to solicit this affair for him; forthis purpose Erasmus was taken into the bishop's family, where he worethe habit of his order. The bishop not succeeding in his expectationat Rome, proved fickle and wavering in his affection; therefore Erasmusprevailed with him to send him to Paris, to prosecute his studies inthat famous university, with the promise of an annual allowance, which was never paid him. He was admitted into Montague College, butindisposition obliged him to return to the bishop, by whom he washonourably entertained. Finding his health restored, he made a journeyto Holland, intending to settle there, but was persuaded to go a secondtime to Paris; where, having no patron to support him, himself says, he rather made a shift to live, than could be said to study. He nextvisited England, where he was received with great respect; and asappears by several of his letters, he honoured it next to the place ofhis nativity. In a letter to Andrelinus, inviting him to England, hespeaks highly of the beauty of the English ladies, and thus describestheir innocent freedom: "When you come into a gentleman's house you areallowed the favour to salute them, and the same when you take leave. " Hewas particularly acquainted with Sir Thomas More, Colet, dean of SaintPaul's, Grocinus, Linacer, Latimer, and many others of the most eminentof that time; and passed some years at Gam-bridge. In his way for Francehe had the misfortune to be stripped of everything; but he did notrevenge this injury by any unjust reflection on the country. Not meetingwith the preferment he expected, he made a voyage to Italy, at that timelittle inferior to the Augustan age for learning. He took his doctorof divinity degree in the university of Turin; stayed about a yearin Bologna; afterward went to Venice, and there published his book ofAdages from the press of the famous Aldus. He removed to Padua, and lastto Rome, where his fame had arrived long before him. Here he gained thefriendship of all the considerable persons of the city, nor could havefailed to have made his fortune, had he not been prevailed upon by thegreat promises of his friends in England to return thither on HenryVIIIth coming to the crown. He was taken into favour by Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, who gave him the living of Aldington, inKent; but whether Erasmus was wanting in making his court to Wolsey, or whether the cardinal viewed him with a jealous eye, because he wasa favourite of Warham, between whom and Wolsey there was perpetualclashing, we know not; however, being disappointed, Erasmus wentto Flanders, and by the interest of Chancellor Sylvagius, was madecounsellor to Charles of Austria, afterward Charles V. , emperor ofGermany. He resided several years at Basil; but on the mass beingabolished in that city by the Reformation, he retired to Fribergin Alsace, where he lived seven years. Having been for a long timeafflicted with the gout, he left Friberg, and returned to Basil. Herethe gout soon left him, but he was seized by a dysentery, and afterlabouring a whole month under that disorder, died on the 22nd of July, 1536, in the house of Jerome Frobenius, son of John, the famous printer. He was honourably interred, and the city of Basil still pays the highestrespect to the memory of so great a man. 

Erasmus was the most facetious man, and the greatest critic of his age. He carried on a reformation in learning at the same time he advancedthat of religion; and promoted a purity of style as well as simplicityof worship. This drew on him the hatred of the ecclesiastics, who wereno less bigotted to their barbarisms in language and philosophy, thanthey were to their superstitious and gaudy ceremonies in religion; theymurdered him in their dull treatises, libelled him in their wretchedsermons, and in their last and most effectual efforts of malice, theyjoined some of their own execrable stuff to his compositions: of whichhe himself complains in a letter addressed to the divines of Louvain. Heexposed with great freedom the vices and corruptions of his own church, yet never would be persuaded to leave her communion. The papal policywould never have suffered Erasmus to have taken so unbridled a rangein the reproof and censure of her extravagancies, but under suchcircumstances, when the public attack of Luther imposed on her aprudential necessity of not disobliging her friends, that she might withmore united strength oppose the common enemy; and patiently bore what atany other time she would have resented. Perhaps no man has obliged thepublic with a greater number of useful volumes than our author; thoughseveral have been attributed to him which he never wrote. His book ofColloquies has passed through more editions than any of his others:Moreri tells us a bookseller in Paris sold twenty thousand at oneimpression. 

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E R A S M U S's

EPISTLE

TO

Sir THOMAS MORE. 

IN my late travels from Italy into England, that I might not trifleaway my time in the rehearsal of old wives' fables, I thought it morepertinent to employ my thoughts in reflecting upon some past studies, or calling to remembrance several of those highly learned, as well assmartly ingenious, friends I had here left behind, among whom you (dearSir) were represented as the chief; whose memory, while absent at thisdistance, I respect with no less a complacency than I was wont whilepresent to enjoy your more intimate conversation, which last affordedme the greatest satisfaction I could possibly hope for. Having thereforeresolved to be a doing, and deeming that time improper for any seriousconcerns, I thought good to divert myself with drawing up a panegyrickupon Folly. How! what maggot (say you) put this in your head? Why, thefirst hint, Sir, was your own surname of More, which comes as nearthe literal sound of the word, * as you yourself are distant from thesignification of it, and that in all men's judgments is vastly wide. 

* Mwpia. 

In the next place, I supposed that this kind of sporting wit would beby you more especially accepted of, by you, Sir, that are wont with thissort of jocose raillery (such as, if I mistake not, is neither dull norimpertinent) to be mightily pleased, and in your ordinary converseto approve yourself a Democritus junior: for truly, as you do from asingular vein of wit very much dissent from the common herd of mankind;so, by an incredible affability and pliableness of temper, you have theart of suiting your humour with all sorts of companies. I hope thereforeyou will not only readily accept of this rude essay as a token fromyour friend, but take it under your more immediate protection, as beingdedicated to you, and by that tide adopted for yours, rather than tobe fathered as my own. And it is a chance if there be wanting somequarrelsome persons that will shew their teeth, and pretend thesefooleries are either too buffoon-like for a grave divine, or toosatyrical for a meek christian, and so will exclaim against me as if Iwere vamping up some old farce, or acted anew the Lucian again witha peevish snarling at all things. But those who are offended at thelightness and pedantry of this subject, I would have them consider thatI do not set myself for the first example of this kind, but that thesame has been oft done by many considerable authors. For thus severalages since, Homer wrote of no more weighty a subject than of a warbetween the frogs and mice, Virgil of a gnat and a pudding-cake, and Ovid of a nut Poly-crates commended the cruelty of Busiris; andIsocrates, that corrects him for this, did as much for the injustice ofGlaucus. Favorinus extolled Thersites, and wrote in praise of a quartanague. Synesius pleaded in behalf of baldness; and Lucian defendeda sipping fly. Seneca drollingly related the deifying of Claudius;Plutarch the dialogue betwixt Gryllus and Ulysses; Lucian and Apuleiusthe story of an ass; and somebody else records the last will of ahog, of which St. Hierom makes mention. So that if they please, letthemselves think the worst of me, and fancy to themselves that I was allthis while a playing at push-pin, or riding astride on a hobby-horse. For how unjust is it, if when we allow different recreations to eachparticular course of life, we afford no diversion to studies; especiallywhen trifles may be a whet to more serious thoughts, and comical mattersmay be so treated of, as that a reader of ordinary sense may possiblythence reap more advantage than from some more big and stately argument:as while one in a long-winded oration descants in commendation ofrhetoric or philosophy, another in a fulsome harangue sets forth thepraise of his nation, a third makes a zealous invitation to a holy warwith the Turks, another confidently sets up for a fortune-teller, and afifth states questions upon mere impertinences. But as nothing is morechildish than to handle a serious subject in a loose, wanton style, sois there nothing more pleasant than so to treat of trifles, as to makethem seem nothing less than what their name imports. As to what relatesto myself, I must be forced to submit to the judgment of others; yet, except I am too partial to be judge in my own case, I am apt to believeI have praised Folly in such a manner as not to have deserved the nameof fool for my pains. To reply now to the objection of satyricalness, wits have been always allowed this privilege, that they might be smartupon any transactions of life, if so be their liberty did not extend torailing; which makes me wonder at the tender-eared humour of this age, which will admit of no address without the prefatory repetition of allformal titles; nay, you may find some so preposterously devout, thatthey will sooner wink at the greatest affront against our Saviour, thanbe content that a prince, or a pope, should be nettled with the leastjoke or gird, especially in what relates to their ordinary customs. Buthe who so blames men's irregularities as to lash at no one particularperson by name, does he (I say) seem to carp so properly as to teachand instruct? And if so, how am I concerned to make any farther excuse?Beside, he who in his strictures points indifferently at all, he seemsnot angry at one man, but at all vices. 

Therefore, if any singly complain they are particularly reflected upon, they do but betray their own guilt, at least their cowardice. SaintHierom dealt in the same argument at a much freer and sharper rate; nay, and he did not sometimes refrain from naming the persons: whereas I havenot only stifled the mentioning any one person, but have so tempered mystyle, as the ingenious reader will easily perceive I aimed at diversionrather than satire. Neither did I so far imitate Juvenal, as to rakeinto the sink of vices to procure a laughter, rather than create ahearty abhorrence. If there be any one that after all remains yetunsatisfied, let him at least consider that there may be good use madeof being reprehended by Folly, which since we have feigned as speaking, we must keep up that character which is suitable to the personintroduced. 

But why do I trouble you, Sir, with this needless apology, you that areso peculiar a patron; as, though the cause itself be none of the best, you can at least give it the best protection. Farewell. 

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On the Argument and Design of the following Oration. 

 WHATEVER the modern satyrs o' th' stage, To jerk the failures of a sliding age, Have lavishly expos'd to public view, For a discharge to all from envy due, Here in as lively colours naked lie, With equal wit, and more of modesty, Those poets, with their free disclosing arts, Strip vice so near to its uncomely parts, Their libels prove but lessons, and they teach Those very crimes which they intend t' impeach: While here so wholesome all, tho' sharp t' th' taste, So briskly free, yet so resolv'dly chaste; The virgin naked as her god of bows, May read or hear when blood at highest flows; Nor more expense of blushes thence arise, Than while the lect'ring matron does advise To guard her virtue, and her honour prize. 

 Satire and panegyric, distant be, Yet jointly here they both in one agree. The whole's a sacrifice of salt and fire; So does the humour of the age require, To chafe the touch, and so foment desire. As doctrine-dangling preachers lull asleep Their unattentive pent-up fold of sheep; The opiated milk glues up the brain, And th' babes of grace are in their cradles lain; ( xxiv) While mounted Andrews, bawdy, bold, and loud, Like cocks, alarm all the drowsy crowd, Whose glittering ears are prick'd as bolt-upright, As sailing hairs are hoisted in a fright. So does it fare with croaking spawns o' th' press, The mould o' th' subject alters the success; What's serious, like sleep, grants writs of ease, Satire and ridicule can only please; As if no other animals could gape, But the biting badger, or the snick'ring ape. 

 Folly by irony's commended here, Sooth'd, that her weakness may the more appear. Thus fools, who trick'd, in red and yellow shine, Are made believe that they are wondrous fine, When all's a plot t' expose them by design. The largesses of Folly here are strown. Like pebbles, not to pick, but trample on. Thus Spartans laid their soaking slaves before The boys, to justle, kick, and tumble o'er: Not that the dry-lipp'd youngsters might combine To taste and know the mystery of wine, But wonder thus at men transform'd to swine; And th' power of such enchantment to escape, Timely renounce the devil of the grape. So here, Though Folly speaker be, and argument, Wit guides the tongue, wisdom's the lecture meant. 

 So here, Though Folly speaker be, and argument, Wit guides the tongue, wisdom's the lecture meant. 

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ERASMUS's Praise of FOLLY. 

_An oration, of feigned matter, spoken by Folly in her own person_. 

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HOW slightly soever I am esteemed in the common vogue of the world, (forI well know how disingenuously Folly is decried, even by those who arethemselves the greatest fools, ) yet it is from my influence alone thatthe whole universe receives her ferment of mirth and jollity: ofwhich this may be urged as a convincing argument, in that as soon as Iappeared to speak before this numerous assembly all their countenanceswere gilded oyer with a lively sparkling pleasantness: you soon welcomedme with so encouraging a look, you spurred me on with so cheerful a hum, that truly in all appearance, you seem now flushed with a good dose ofreviving nectar, when as just before you sate drowsy and melancholy, asif you were lately come out of some hermit's cell. But as it is usual, that as soon as the sun peeps from her eastern bed, and draws back thecurtains of the darksome night; or as when, after a hard winter, therestorative spring breathes a more enlivening air, nature forthwithchanges her apparel, and all things seem to renew their age; so at thefirst sight of me you all unmask, and appear in more lively colours. That therefore which expert orators can scarce effect by all theirlittle artifice of eloquence, to wit, a raising the attentions of theirauditors to a composedness of thought, this a bare look from me hascommanded. The reason why I appear in this odd kind of garb, you shallsoon be informed of, if for so short a while you will have but thepatience to lend me an ear; yet not such a one as you are wont tohearken with to your reverend preachers, but as you listen withal tomountebanks, buffoons, and merry-andrews; in short, such as formerlywere fastened to Midas, as a punishment for his affront to the god Pan. For I am now in a humour to act awhile the sophist, yet not of that sortwho undertake the drudgery of tyrannizing over school boys, and teach amore than womanish knack of brawling; but in imitation of those ancientones, who to avoid the scandalous epithet of wise, preferred this titleof sophists; the task of these was to celebrate the worth of gods andheroes. Prepare therefore to be entertained with a panegyrick, yet notupon Hercules, Solon, or any other grandee, but on myself, that is, uponFolly. 

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And here I value not their censure that pretend it is foppish andaffected for any person to praise himself: yet let it be as silly asthey please, if they will but allow it needful: and indeed what is morebefitting than that Folly should be the trumpet of her own praise, anddance after her own pipe? for who can set me forth better than myself?or who can pretend to be so well acquainted with my condition?

And yet farther, I may safely urge, that all this is no more than thesame with what is done by several seemingly great and wise men, who witha new-fashioned modesty employ some paltry orator or scribbling poet, whom they bribe to flatter them with some high-flown character, thatshall consist of mere lies and shams; and yet the persons thus extolledshall bristle up, and, peacock-like, bespread their plumes, while theimpudent parasite magnifies the poor wretch to the skies, and proposeshim as a complete pattern of all virtues, from each of which he is yetas far distant as heaven itself from hell: what is all this in the meanwhile, but the tricking up a daw in stolen feathers; a labouring tochange the black-a-moor's hue, and the drawing on a pigmy's frock overthe shoulders of a giant. 

Lastly, I verify the old observation, that allows him a right ofpraising himself, who has nobody else to do it for him: for really, Icannot but admire at that ingratitude, shall I term it, or blockishnessof mankind, who when they all willingly pay to me their utmostdevoir, and freely acknowledge their respective obligations; thatnotwithstanding this, there should have been none so grateful orcomplaisant as to have bestowed on me a commendatory oration, especiallywhen there have not been wanting such as at a great expense of sweat, and loss of sleep, have in elaborate speeches, given high encomiums totyrants, agues, flies, baldness, and such like trumperies. 

I shall entertain you with a hasty and unpremeditated, but so much themore natural discourse. My venting it _ex tempore_, I would not haveyou think proceeds from any principles of vain glory by which ordinaryorators square their attempts, who (as it is easy to observe) when theyare delivered of a speech that has been thirty years a conceiving, nay, perhaps at last, none of their own, yet they will swear they wrote it ina great hurry, and upon very short warning: whereas the reason of mynot being provided beforehand is only because it was always my humourconstantly to speak that which lies uppermost. Next, let no one beso fond as to imagine, that I should so far stint my invention tothe method of other pleaders, as first to define, and then dividemy subject, i. E. , myself. For it is equally hazardous to attempt thecrowding her within the narrow limits of a definition, whose natureis of so diffusive an extent, or to mangle and disjoin that, to theadoration whereof all nations unitedly concur. Beside, to what purposeis it to lay down a definition for a faint resemblance, and mere shadowof me, while appearing here personally, you may view me at a morecertain light? And if your eye-sight fail not, you may at firstblush discern me to be her whom the Greeks term _Mwpia_, the Latins_stultitia_. 

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But why need I have been so impertinent as to have told you this, as ifmy very looks did not sufficiently betray what I am; or supposing any beso credulous as to take me for some sage matron or goddess of wisdom, asif a single glance from me would not immediately correct their mistake, while my visage, the exact reflex of my soul, would supply and supersedethe trouble of any other confessions: for I appear always in my naturalcolours, and an unartificial dress, and never let my face pretend onething, and my heart conceal another; nay, and in all things I am so trueto my principles, that I cannot be so much as counterfeited, even bythose who challenge the name of wits, yet indeed are no better thanjackanapes tricked up in gawdy clothes, and asses strutting in lions'skins; and how cunningly soever they carry it, their long ears appear, and betray what they are. These in troth are very rude and disingenuous, for while they apparently belong to my party, yet among the vulgar theyare so ashamed of my relation, as to cast it in others' dish for a shameand reproach: wherefore since they are so eager to be accounted wise, when in truth they are extremely silly, what, if to give them their due, I dub them with the title of wise fools: and herein they copy afterthe example of some modern orators, who swell to that proportion ofconceitedness, as to vaunt themselves for so many giants of eloquence, if with a double-tongued fluency they can plead indifferently for eitherside, and deem it a very doughty exploit if they can but interlard aLatin sentence with some Greek word, which for seeming garnish theycrowd in at a venture; and rather than be at a stand for some crampwords, they will furnish up a long scroll of old obsolete terms out ofsome musty author, and foist them in, to amuse the reader with, thatthose who understand them may be tickled with the happiness of beingacquainted with them: and those who understand them not, the less theyknow the more they may admire; whereas it has been always a custom tothose of our side to contemn and undervalue whatever is strange andunusual, while those that are better conceited of themselves will nodand smile, and prick up their ears, that they may be thought easily toapprehend that, of which perhaps they do not understand one word. And somuch for this; pardon the digression, now I return. 

Of my name I have informed you, Sirs; what additional epithet to giveyou I know not; except you will be content with that of most foolish;for under what more proper appellation can the goddess Folly greether devotees? But since there are few acquainted with my family andoriginal, I will now give you some account of my extraction:

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First then, my father was neither the chaos, nor hell, nor Saturn, norJupiter, nor any of those old, worn out, grandsire gods, but Plutus, thevery same that, maugre Homer, Hesiod, nay, in spite of Jove himself, wasthe primary father born amongst these delights, I did not, likeother infants, come crying into the world, but perked up, and laughedimmediately in my mother's face. And there is no reason I should envyJove for having a she-goat to his nurse, since I was more creditablysuckled by two jolly nymphs; the name of the first drunkenness, oneof Bacchus's offspring, the other ignorance, the daughter of Pan;both which you may here behold among several others of my train andattendants, whose particular names, if you would fain know, I will giveyou in short This, who goes with a mincing gait, and holds up her headso high, is Self-Love. She that looks so spruce, and makes such a noiseand bustle, is Flattery. That other, which sits hum-drum, as if she werehalf asleep, is called Forgetfulness. She that leans on her elbow, andsometimes yawningly stretches out her arms, is Laziness. This, thatwears a plighted garland of flowers, and smells so perfumed, isPleasure. The other, which appears in so smooth a skin, and pampered-upflesh, is Sensuality. She that stares so wildly, and rolls about hereyes, is Madness. As to those two gods whom you see playing among thelasses the name of the one is Intemperance, the other Sound Sleep. Bythe help and service of this retinue I bring all things under the vergeof my power, lording it over the greatest kings and potentates. 

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You have now heard of my descent, my education, and my attendance; thatI may not be taxed as presumptuous in borrowing the title of a goddess, I come now in the next place to acquaint you what obliging favours Ieverywhere bestow, and how largely my jurisdiction extends: for if, as one has ingenuously noted, to be a god is no other than to be abenefactor to mankind; and if they have been thought deservedly deifiedwho have invented the use of wine, corn, or any other convenience forthe well-being of mortals, why may not I justly bear the van among thewhole troop of gods, who in all, and toward all, exert an unparalleledbounty and beneficence?

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For instance, in the first place, what can be more dear and preciousthan life itself? and yet for this are none beholden, save to me alone. For it is neither the spear of throughly-begotten Pallas, nor thebuckler of cloud-gathering Jove, that multiplies and propagates mankind:but my sportive and tickling recreation that proceeded the old crabbedphilosophers, and those who now supply their stead, the mortified monksand friars; as also kings, priests, and popes, nay, the whole tribe ofpoetic gods, who are at last grown so numerous, as in the camp of heaven(though ne'er so spacious), to jostle for elbow room. But it is notsufficient to have made it appear that I am the source and originalof all life, except I likewise shew that all the benefits of life areequally at my disposal. And what are such? Why, can any one be saidproperly to live to whom pleasure is denied? You will give me yourassent; for there is none I know among you so wise shall I say, or sosilly, as to be of a contrary opinion. The Stoics indeed contemn, andpretend to banish pleasure; but this is only a dissembling trick, anda putting the vulgar out of conceit with it, that they may more quietlyengross it to themselves: but I dare them now to confess what one stageof life is not melancholy, dull, tiresome, tedious, and uneasy, unlesswe spice it with pleasure, that hautgoust of Folly. Of the truth whereofthe never enough to be commended Sophocles is sufficient authority, whogives me the highest character in that sentence of his, To know nothing is the sweetest life. 

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Yet abating from this, let us examine the case more narrowly. Whoknows not that the first scene of infancy is far the most pleasant anddelightsome? What then is it in children that makes us so kiss, hug, andplay with them, and that the bloodiest enemy can scarce have the heartto hurt them; but their ingredients of innocence and Folly, of whichnature out of providence did purposely compound and blend their tenderinfancy, that by a frank return of pleasure they might make some sortof amends for their parents' trouble, and give in caution as it were forthe discharge of a future education; the next advance from childhood isyouth, and how favourably is this dealt with; how kind, courteous, andrespectful are all to it? and how ready to become serviceable upon alloccasions? And whence reaps it this happiness? Whence indeed, but fromme only, by whose procurement it is furnished with little of wisdom, andso with the less of disquiet? And when once lads begin to grow up, and attempt to write man, their prettiness does then soon decay, theirbriskness flags, their humours stagnate, their jollity ceases, and theirblood grows cold; and the farther they proceed in years, the more theygrow backward in the enjoyment of themselves, till waspish old agecomes on, a burden to itself as well as others, and that so heavy andoppressive, as none would bear the weight of, unless out of pity totheir sufferings. I again intervene, and lend a helping-hand, assistingthem at a dead lift, in the same method the poets feign their gods tosuccour dying men, by transforming them into new creatures, which I doby bringing them back, after they have one foot in the grave, to theirinfancy again; so as there is a great deal of truth couched in that oldproverb, _Once an old man, and twice a child_. Now if any one be curiousto understand what course I take to effect this alteration, my method isthis: I bring them to my well of forgetfulness, (the fountain whereof isin the Fortunate Islands, and the river Lethe in hell but a small streamof it), and when they have there filled their bellies full, and washeddown care, by the virtue and operation whereof they become young again. 

Ay, but (say you) they merely dote, and play the fool: why yes, this iswhat I mean by growing young again: for what else is it to be a childthan to be a fool and an idiot? It is the being such that makes that ageso acceptable: for who does not esteem it somewhat ominous to see a boyendowed with the discretion of a man, and therefore for the curbingof too forward parts we have a disparaging proverb, _Soon ripe, soonrotten?_ And farther, who would keep company or have any thing to dowith such an old blade, as, after the wear and harrowing of so manyyears should yet continue of as clear a head and sound a judgment ashe had at any time been in his middle-age; and therefore it is greatkindness of me that old men grow fools, since it is hereby only thatthey are freed from such vexations as would torment them if they weremore wise: they can drink briskly, bear up stoutly, and lightly passover such infirmities, as a far stronger constitution could scarcemaster. Sometime, with the old fellow in Plautus, they are brought backto their horn-book again, to learn to spell their fortune in love. 

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Most wretched would they needs be if they had but wit enough to besensible of their hard condition; but by my assistance, they carryoff all well, and to their respective friends approve themselves good, sociable, jolly companions. Thus Homer makes aged Nestor famed fora smooth oily-tongued orator, while the delivery of Achilles was butrough, harsh, and hesitant; and the same poet elsewhere tells us of oldmen that sate on the walls, and spake with a great deal of flourish andelegance. And in this point indeed they surpass and outgo children, whoare pretty forward in a softly, innocent prattle, but otherwise are toomuch tongue-tied, and want the other's most acceptable embellishment ofa perpetual talkativeness. Add to this, that old men love to be playingwith children, and children delight as much in them, to verify theproverb, that _Birds of a feather flock together_. And indeed whatdifference can be discerned between them, but that the one is morefurrowed with wrinkles, and has seen a little more of the world thanthe other? For otherwise their whitish hair, their want of teeth, their smallness of stature, their milk diet, their bald crowns, theirprattling, their playing, their short memory, their heedlessness, andall their other endowments, exactly agree; and the more they advancein years, the nearer they come back to their cradle, till like childrenindeed, at last they depart the world, without any remorse at the lossof life, or sense of the pangs of death. 

[Illustration: 079]

And now let any one compare the excellency of my metamorphosing powerto that which Ovid attributes to the gods; their strange feats in somedrunken passions we will omit for their credit sake, and instanceonly in such persons as they pretend great kindness for; these theytransformed into trees, birds, insects, and sometimes serpents; butalas, their very change into somewhat else argues the destruction ofwhat they were before; whereas I can restore the same numerical man tohis pristine state of youth, health and strength; yea, what is more, if men would but so far consult their own interest, as to discard allthoughts of wisdom, and entirely resign themselves to my guidance andconduct, old age should be a paradox, and each man's years a perpetualspring. For look how your hard plodding students, by a close sedentaryconfinement to their books, grow mopish, pale, and meagre, as if, by acontinual wrack of brains, and torture of invention, their veins werepumped dry, and their whole body squeezed sapless; whereas my followersare smooth, plump, and bucksome, and altogether as lusty as so manybacon-hogs, or sucking calves; never in their career of pleasure to bearrested with old age, if they could but keep themselves untainted fromthe contagiousness of wisdom, with the leprosy whereof, if at any timethey are infected, it is only for prevention, lest they should otherwisehave been too happy. 

For a more ample confirmation of the truth of what foregoes, it is onall sides confessed, that Folly is the best preservative of youth, and the most effectual antidote against age. And it is a never-failingobservation made of the people of Brabant, that, contrary to the proverbof _Older and wiser_, the more ancient they grow, the more foolsthey are; and there is not any one country, whose inhabitants enjoythemselves better, and rub through the world with more ease and quiet. To these are nearly related, as well by affinity of customs, as ofneighbourhood, my friends the Hollanders: mine I may well call them, forthey stick so close and lovingly to me, that they are styled fools toa proverb, and yet scorn to be ashamed of their name. Well, let fondmortals go now in a needless quest of some Medea, Circe, Venus, orsome enchanted fountain, for a restorative of age, whereas the accurateperformance of this feat lies only within the ability of my art andskill. 

It is I only who have the receipt of making that liquor wherewithMemnon's daughter lengthened out her grandfather's declining days: it isI that am that Venus, who so far restored the languishing Phaon, as tomake Sappho fall deeply in love with his beauty. Mine are those herbs, mine those charms, that not only lure back swift time, when past andgone, but what is more to be admired, clip its wings, and prevent allfarther flight. So then, if you will all agree to my verdict, thatnothing is more desirable than the being young, nor any thing moreloathed than contemptible old age, you must needs acknowledge it asan unrequitable obligation from me, for fencing off the one, andperpetuating the other. 

But why should I confine my discourse to the narrow subject of mankindonly? View the whole heaven itself, and then tell me what one of thatdivine tribe would not be mean and despicable, if my name did not lendhim some respect and authority. Why is Bacchus always painted as a youngman, but only because he is freakish, drunk, and mad; and spending histime in toping, dancing, masking, and revelling, seems to have nothingin the least to do with wisdom? Nay, so far is he from the affectationof being accounted wise, that he is content, all the rights of devotionwhich are paid unto him should consist of apishness and drollery. Farther, what scoffs and jeers did not the old comedians throw upon him?_O swinish punch-gut god_, say they, _that smells rank of the sty he wassowed up in_, and so on. But prithee, who in this case, always merry, youthful, soaked in wine, and drowned in pleasure, who, I say, in sucha case, would change conditions, either with the lofty menace-lookingJove, the grave, yet timorous Pan, the stately Pallas, or indeed anyone other of heaven's landlords? Why is Cupid feigned as a boy, but onlybecause he is an under-witted whipster, that neither acts nor thinks anything with discretion? Why is Venus adored for the mirror of beauty, butonly because she and I claim kindred, she being of the same complexionwith my father Plutus, and therefore called by Homer the Golden Goddess?Beside, she imitates me in being always a laughing, if either we believethe poets, or their near kinsmen the painters, the first mentioning, theother drawing her constantly in that posture. Add farther, to what deitydid the Romans pay a more ceremonial respect than to Flora, that bawd ofobscenity? And if any one search the poets for an historical accountof the gods, he shall find them all famous for lewd pranks anddebaucheries. It is needless to insist upon the miscarriages of others, when the lecherous intrigues of Jove himself are so notorious, andwhen the pretendedly chaste Diana so oft uncloaked her modesty to runa hunting after her beloved Endimion. But I will say no more, for Ihad rather they should be told of their faults by Momus, who was wantformerly to sting them with some close reflections, till nettled by hisabusive raillery, they kicked him out of heaven for his saucinessof daring to reprove such as were beyond correction: and now in hisbanishment from heaven he finds but cold entertainment here onearth, nay, is denied all admittance into the court of princes, wherenotwithstanding my handmaid Flattery finds a most encouraging welcome:but this petulant monitor being thrust out of doors, the gods can nowmore freely rant and revel, and take their whole swinge of pleasure. 

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Now the beastly Priapus may recreate himself without contradiction inlust and filthiness; now the sly Mercury may, without discovery, go onin his thieveries, and nimble-fingered juggles; the sooty Vulcan may nowrenew his wonted custom of making the other gods laugh by his hopping solimpingly, and coming off with so many dry jokes, and biting repartees. Silenus, the old doting lover, to shew his activity, may now dance afrisking jig, and the nymphs be at the same sport naked. The goatishsatyrs may make up a merry ball, and Pan, the blind harper may put uphis bagpipes, and sing bawdy catches, to which the gods, especially whenthey are almost drunk, shall give a most profound attention. But whywould I any farther rip open and expose the weakness of the gods, aweakness so childish and absurd, that no man can at the same time keephis countenance, and make a relation of it? Now therefore, like Homer'swandering muse, I will take my leave of heaven, and come down againhere below, where we shall find nothing happy, nay, nothing tolerable, without my presence and assistance. And in the first place consider howprovidently nature has took care that in all her works there shouldbe some piquant smack and relish of Folly: for since the Stoics definewisdom to be conducted by reason, and folly nothing else but the beinghurried by passion, lest our life should otherwise have been too dulland inactive, that creator, who out of clay first tempered and madeus up, put into the composition of our humanity more than a pound ofpassions to an ounce of reason; and reason he confined within the narrowcells of the brain, whereas he left passions the whole body to rangein. Farther, he set up two sturdy champions to stand perpetually on theguard, that reason might make no assault, surprise, nor in-road: anger, which keeps its station in the fortress of the heart; and Just, whichlike the signs Virgo and Scorpio, rules the belly and secret members. Against the forces of these two warriors how unable is reason to bear upand withstand, every day's experience does abundantly witness; while letreason be never so importunate in urging and reinforcing her admonitionsto virtue, yet the passions bear all before them, and by the least offerof curb or restraint grow but more imperious, till reason itself, forquietness sake, is forced to desist from all further remonstrance. 

But because it seemed expedient that man, who was born for thetransaction of business, should have so much wisdom as should fit andcapacitate him for the discharge of his duty herein, and yet lest sucha measure as is requisite for this purpose might prove too dangerousand fatal, I was advised with for an antidote, who prescribed thisinfallible receipt of taking a wife, a creature so harmless and silly, and yet so useful and convenient, as might mollify and make pliablethe stiffness and morose humour of man. Now that which made Platodoubt under what genus to rank woman, whether among brutes or rationalcreatures, was only meant to denote the extreme stupidness and Folly ofthat sex, a sex so unalterably simple, that for any of them to thrustforward, and reach at the name of wise, is but to make themselves themore remarkable fools, such an endeavour, being but a swimming againstthe stream, nay, the turning the course of nature, the bare attemptingwhereof is as extravagant as the effecting of it is impossible: foras it is a trite proverb, _That an ape will be an ape, though clad inpurple_; so a woman will be a woman, a fool, whatever disguise she takesup. And yet there is no reason women should take it amiss to be thuscharged; for if they do but righdy consider they will find it is toFolly they are beholden for those endowments, wherein they so farsurpass and excel man; as first, for their unparalleled beauty, by thecharm whereof they tyrannize over the greatest tyrants; for what isit but too great a smatch of wisdom that makes men so tawny andthick-skinned, so rough and prickly-bearded, like an emblem of winteror old age, while women have such dainty smooth cheeks, such a lowgende voice, and so pure a complexion, as if nature had drawn them for astanding pattern of all symmetry and comeliness? Beside, what live, butto be wound up as it were in a winding-sheet before we are dead, and soto be shuffled quick into a grave, and buried alive. 

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But there are yet others perhaps that have no gust in this sort ofpleasure, but place their greatest content in the enjoyment of friends, telling us that true friendship is to be preferred before all otheracquirements; that it is a thing so useful and necessary, as the veryelements could not long subsist without a natural combination; sopleasant that it affords as warm an influence as the sun itself; sohonest, (if honesty in this case deserve any consideration), that thevery philosophers have not stuck to place this as one among the rest oftheir different sentiments of the chiefest good. But what if I make itappear that I also am the main spring and original of this endearment?Yes, I can easily demonstrate it, and that not by crabbed syllogisms, or a crooked and unintelligible way of arguing, but can make it (as theproverb goes) _As plain as the nose on your face_. Well then, to scratchand curry one another, to wink at a friend's faults; nay, to cry up somefailings for virtuous and commendable, is not this the next door tothe being a fool? When one looking stedfastly in his mistress's face, admires a mole as much as a beauty spot; when another swears his lady'sstinking breath is a most redolent perfume; and at another time the fondparent hugs the squint-eyed child, and pretends it is rather a becomingglance and winning aspect than any blemish of the eye-sight, what is allthis but the very height of Folly?

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Folly (I say) that both makes friends and keeps them so. I speak ofmortal men only, among whom there are none but have some small faults;he is most happy that has fewest. If we pass to the gods, we shallfind that they have so much of wisdom, as they have very little offriendship; nay, nothing of that which is true and hearty. The reasonwhy men make a greater improvement in this virtue, is only because theyare more credulous and easy natured; for friends must be of the samehumour and inclinations too, or else the league of amity, though madewith never so many protestations, will be soon broke. Thus graveand morose men seldom prove fast friends; they are too captious andcensorious, and will not bear with one another's infirmities; they areas eagle sighted as may be in the espial of others' faults, while theywink upon themselves, and never mind the beam in their own eyes. Inshort, man being by nature so prone to frailties, so humoursome andcross-grained, and guilty of so many slips and miscarriages, there couldbe no firm friendship contracted, except there be such an allowance madefor each other's defaults, which the Greeks term _'Eunoeia_, and we mayconstrue good nature, which is but another word for Folly. And what?Is not Cupid, that first father of all relation, is not he stark blind, that as he cannot himself distinguish of colours, so he would make us asmope-eyed in judging falsely of all love concerns, and wheedle us into athinking that we are always in the right? Thus every Jack sticks to hisown Jill; every tinker esteems his own trull; and the hob-nailed suiterprefers Joan the milk-maid before any of my lady's daughters. Thesethings are true, and are ordinarily laughed at, and yet, howeverridiculous they seem, it is hence only that all societies receive theircement and consolidation. 

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The same which has been said of friendship is much more applicable to astate of marriage, which is but the highest advance and improvementof friendship in the closest bond of union. Good God! What frequentdivorces, or worse mischief, would oft sadly happen, except man andwife, were so discreet as to pass over light occasions of quarrel withlaughing, jesting, dissembling, and such like playing the fool? Nay, howfew matches would go forward, if the hasty lover did but first knowhow many little tricks of lust and wantonness (and perhaps more grossfailings) his coy and seemingly bashful mistress had oft before beenguilty of? And how fewer marriages, when consummated, would continuehappy, if the husband were not either sottishly insensible of, or didnot purposely wink at and pass over the lightness and forwardness of hisgood-natured wife? This peace and quietness is owing to my management, for there would otherwise be continual jars, and broils, and mad doings, if want of wit only did not at the same time make a contented cuckoldand a still house; if the cuckoo sing at the back door, the unthinkingcornute takes no notice of the unlucky omen of others' eggs being laidin his own nest, but laughs it over, kisses his dear spouse, and allis well. And indeed it is much better patiently to be such a hen-peckedfrigot, than always to be wracked and tortured with the grating surmisesof suspicion and jealousy. In fine, there is no one society, no onerelation men stand in, would be comfortable, or indeed tolerable, without my assistance; there could be no right understanding betwixtprince and people, lord and servant, tutor and pupil, friend andfriend, man and wife, buyer and seller, or any persons however otherwiserelated, if they did not cowardly put up small abuses, sneakingly cringeand submit, or after all fawningly scratch and flatter each other. Thisyou will say is much, but you shall yet hear what is more; tell me then, can any one love another that first hates himself? Is it likely anyone should agree with a friend that is first fallen out with his ownjudgment? Or is it probable he should be any way pleasing to another, who is a perpetual plague and trouble to himself? This is such a paradoxthat none can be so mad as to maintain. Well, but if I am excludedand barred out, every man would be so far from being able to bearwith others, that he would be burthensome to himself, and consequentlyincapable of any ease or satisfaction. Nature, that toward some of herproducts plays the step-mother rather than the indulgent parent, hasendowed some men with that unhappy peevishness of disposition, as tonauseate and dislike whatever is their own, and much admire what belongsto other persons, so as they cannot in any wise enjoy what their birthor fortunes have bestowed upon them: for what grace is there in thegreatest beauty, if it be always clouded with frowns and sulliness? Orwhat vigour in youth, if it be harassed with a pettish, dogged, waspish, ill humour? None, sure. Nor indeed can there be any creditableacquirement of ourselves in any one station of life, but we should sinkwithout rescue into misery and despair, if we were not buoyed up andsupported by self-love, which is but the elder sister (as it were) ofFolly, and her own constant friend and assistant For what is or can bemore silly than to be lovers and admirers of ourselves? And yet if itwere not so there will be no relish to any of our words or actions. Takeaway this one property of a fool, and the orator shall become as dumband silent as the pulpit he stands in; the musician shall hang up hisuntouched instruments on the wall; the completest actors shall be hissedoff the stage; the poet shall be burlesqued with his own doggrel rhymes;the painter shall himself vanish into an imaginary landscape; and thephysician shall want food more than his patients do physic. In short, without self-love, instead of beautiful, you shall think yourself an oldbeldam of fourscore; instead of youthful, you shall seem just droppinginto the grave; instead of eloquent, a mere stammerer; and in lieu ofgende and complaisant, you shall appear like a downright country clown;it being so necessary that every one should think well of himself beforehe can expect the good opinion of others. Finally, when it is the mainand essential part of happiness to desire to be no other than what wealready are; this expedient is again wholly owing to self-love, which soflushes men with a good conceit of their own, that no one repents of hisshape, of his wit, of his education, or of his country; so as the dirtyhalf-drowned Hollander would not remove into the pleasant plains ofItaly, the rude Thracian would not change his boggy soil for the bestseat in Athens, nor the brutish Scythian quit his thorny deserts tobecome an inhabitant of the Fortunate Islands. And oh the incomparablecontrivance of nature, who has ordered all things in so even a methodthat wherever she has been less bountiful in her gifts, there shemakes it up with a larger dose of self-love, which supplies the formerdefects, and makes all even. To enlarge farther, I may well presume toaver, that there are no considerable exploits performed, no useful artsinvented, but what I am the respective author and manager of: as first, what is more lofty and heroical than war? and yet, what is more foolishthan for some petty, trivial affront, to take such a revenge as bothsides shall be sure to be losers, and where the quarrel must be decidedat the price of so many limbs and lives? And when they come to anengagement, what service can be done by such pale-faced students, asby drudging at the oars of wisdom, have spent all their strength andactivity? No, the only use is of blunt sturdy fellows that have littleof wit, and so the more of resolution: except you would make a soldierof such another Demosthenes as threw down his arms when he came withinsight of the enemy, and lost that credit in the camp which he gained inthe pulpit. 

But counsel, deliberation, and advice (say you), are very necessaryfor the management of war: very true, but not such counsel as shall beprescribed by the strict rules of wisdom and justice; for a battle shallbe more successfully fought by serving-men, porters, bailiffs, padders, rogues, gaol-birds, and such like tag-rags of mankind, than by themost accomplished philosophers; which last, how unhappy they are in themanagement of such concerns, Socrates (by the oracle adjudged to be thewisest of mortals) is a notable example; who when he appeared in theattempt of some public performance before the people, he faltered in thefirst onset, and could never recover himself, but was hooted and hissedhome again: yet this philosopher was the less a fool, for refusing theappellation of wise, and not accepting the oracle's compliment; as alsofor advising that no philosophers should have any hand in the governmentof the commonwealth; he should have likewise at the same time, added, that they should be banished all human society. 

And what made this great man poison himself to prevent the malice of hisaccusers? What made him the instrument of his own death, but only hisexcessiveness of wisdom? whereby, while he was searching into the natureof clouds, while he was plodding and contemplating upon ideas, while hewas exercising his geometry upon the measure of a flea, and diving intothe recesses of nature, for an account how little insects, when theywere so small, could make so great a buzz and hum; while he was intentupon these fooleries he minded nothing of the world, or its ordinaryconcerns. 

Next to Socrates comes his scholar Plato, a famous orator indeed, thatcould be so dashed out of countenance by an illiterate rabble, as todemur, and hawk, and hesitate, before he could get to the end of oneshort sentence. Theo-phrastus was such another coward, who beginning tomake an oration, was presently struck down with fear, as if he had seensome ghost, or hobgoblin. Isocrates was so bashful and timorous, thatthough he taught rhetoric, yet he could never have the confidence tospeak in public. Cicero, the master of Roman eloquence, was wont tobegin his speeches with a low, quivering voice, just like a school-boy, afraid of not saying his lesson perfect enough to escape whipping:and yet Fabius commends this property of Tully as an argument of aconsiderate orator, sensible of the difficulty of acquitting himselfwith credit: but what hereby does he do more than plainly confess thatwisdom is but a rub and impediment to the well management of any affair?How would these heroes crouch, and shrink into nothing, at the sight ofdrawn swords, that are thus quashed and stunned at the delivery of barewords?

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Now then let Plato's fine sentence be cried up, that "happy are thosecommonwealths where either philosophers are elected kings, or kings turnphilosophers. " Alas, this is so far from being true, that if we consultall historians for an account of past ages, we shall find no princesmore weak, nor any people more slavish and wretched, than where theadministrations of affairs fell on the shoulders of some learned bookishgovernor. Of the truth whereof, the two Catos are exemplary instances:the first of which embroiled the city, and tired out the senate by histedious harangues of defending himself, and accusing others; the youngerwas an unhappy occasion of the loss of the peoples' liberty, whileby improper methods he pretended to maintain it To these may be addedBrutus, Cassius, the two Gracchi, and Cicero himself, who was no lessfatal to Rome, than his parallel Demosthenes was to Athens: as likewiseMarcus Antoninus, whom we may allow to have been a good emperor, yet theless such for his being a philosopher; and certainly he did not do halfthat kindness to his empire by his own prudent management of affairs, as he did mischief by leaving such a degenerate successor as his sonCommodus proved to be; but it is a common observation, that _A wisefather has many times a foolish son_, nature so contriving it, lest thetaint of wisdom, like hereditary distempers, should otherwise descend bypropagation. Thus Tully's son Marcus, though bred at Athens, proved buta dull, insipid soul; and Socrates his children had (as one ingeniouslyexpresses it) "more of the mother than the father, " a phrase for theirbeing fools. However, it were the more excusable, though wise men are soawkward and unhandy in the ordering of public affairs, if they werenot so bad, or worse in the management of their ordinary and domesticconcerns; but alas, here they are much to seek: for place a formal wiseman at a feast, and he shall, either by his morose silence put the wholetable out of humour, or by his frivolous questions disoblige and tireout all that sit near him. Call him out to dance, and he shall move nomore nimbly than a camel: invite him to any public performance, and byhis very looks he shall damp the mirth of all the spectators, and atlast be forced, like Cato, to leave the theatre, because he cannotunstarch his gravity, nor put on a more pleasant countenance. If heengage in any discourse, he either breaks off abruptly, or tires out thepatience of the whole company, if he goes on: if he have any contract, sale, or purchase to make, or any other worldly business to transact, hebehaves himself more like a senseless stock than a rational man; so ashe can be of no use nor advantage to himself, to his friends, or tohis country; because he knows nothing how the world goes, and is whollyunacquainted with the humour of the vulgar, who cannot but hate a personso disagreeing in temper from themselves. 

And indeed the whole proceedings of the world are nothing but onecontinued scene of Folly, all the actors being equally fools and madmen;and therefore if any be so pragmatically wise as to be singular, hemust even turn a second Timon, or man-hater, and by retiring into someunfrequented desert, become a recluse from all mankind. 

But to return to what I first proposed, what was it in the infancy ofthe world that made men, naturally savage, unite into civil societies, but only flattery, one of my chiefest virtues? For there is nothing elsemeant by the fables of Amphion and Orpheus with their harps; the firstmaking the stones jump into a well-built wall, the other inducing thetrees to pull their legs out of the ground, and dance the mor-rice afterhim. What was it that quieted and appeased the Roman people, when theybrake out into a riot for the redress of grievances? Was it any sinewystarched oration? No, alas, it was only a silly, ridiculous story, toldby Menenius Agrippa, how the other members of the body quarrelled withthe belly, resolving no longer to continue her drudging caterers, tillby the penance they thought thus in revenge to impose, they soonfound their own strength so far diminished, that paying the cost ofexperiencing a mistake, they willingly returned to their respectiveduties. Thus when the rabble of Athens murmured at the exaction of themagistrates, Themistocles satisfied them with such another tale of thefox and the hedge-hog; the first whereof being stuck fast in a miry bog, the flies came swarming about him, and almost sucked out all his blood, the latter officiously offers his service to drive them away; no, saysthe fox, if these which are almost glutted be frighted off, there willcome a new hungry set that will be ten times more greedy and devouring:the moral of this he meant applicable to the people, who if they hadsuch magistrates removed as they complained of for extortion, yet theirsuccessors would certainly be worse. 

With what highest advances of policy could Sertorius have kept theBarbarians so well in awe, as by a white hart, which he pretended waspresented to him by Diana, and brought him intelligence of all hisenemies' designs? What was Lycurgus his grand argument for demonstratingthe force of education, but only the bringing out two whelps of the samebitch, differently brought up, and placing before them a dish, and alive hare; the one, that had been bred to hunting, ran after the game;while the other, whose kennel had been a kitchen, presently fell alicking the platter. Thus the before-mentioned Sertorius made hissoldiers sensible that wit and contrivance would do more than barestrength, by setting a couple of men to the plucking off two horses'tails; the first pulling at all in one handful, tugged in vain; whilethe other, though much the weaker, snatching off one by one, soonperformed his appointed task. 

Instances of like nature are Minos and king Numa, both which fooledthe people into obedience by a mere cheat and juggle; the first bypretending he was advised by Jupiter, the latter by making the vulgarbelieve he had the goddess _AEgeria_ assistant to him in all debates andtransactions. And indeed it is by such wheedles that the common peopleare best gulled, and imposed upon. 

For farther, what city would ever submit to the rigorous laws of Plato, to the severe injunctions of Aristotle? or the more unpracticable tenetsof Socrates? No, these would have been too straight and galling, therenot being allowance enough made for the infirmities of the people. 

To pass to another head, what was it made the Decii so forward to offerthemselves up as a sacrifice for an atonement to the angry gods, torescue and stipulate for their indebted country? What made Curtius, ona like occasion, so desperately to throw away his life, but onlyvainglory, that is condemned, and unanimously voted for a main branch ofFolly by all wise men? What is more unreasonable and foppish (say they)than for any man, out of ambition to some office, to bow, to scrapeand cringe to the gaping rabble, to purchase their favour by bribes anddonatives, to have their names cried up in the streets, to be carriedabout as it were for a fine sight upon the shoulders of the crowd, tohave their effigies carved in brass, and put up in the market placefor a monument of their popularity? Add to this, the affectation of newtitles and distinctive badges of honour; nay, the very deifying of suchas were the most bloody tyrants. These are so extremely ridiculous, that there is need of more than one Democritus to laugh at them. And yethence only have been occasioned those memorable achievements of heroes, that have so much employed the pens of many laborious writers. 

It is Folly--that, in a several dress, governs cities, appointsmagistrates, and supports judicatures; and, in short, makes the wholecourse of man's life a mere children's play, and worse than push-pindiversion. The invention of all arts and sciences are likewise owing tothe same cause: for what sedentary, thoughtful men would have beat theirbrains in the search of new and unheard-of-mysteries, if not egged onby the bubbling hopes of credit and reputation? They think a littleglittering flash of vain-glory is a sufficient reward for all theirsweat, and toil, and tedious drudgery, while they that are supposedlymore foolish, reap advantage of the others' labours. 

And now since I have made good my title to valour and industry, what ifI challenge an equal share of wisdom? How! this (you will say) is absurdand contradictory; the east and west may as soon shake hands as Follyand Wisdom be reconciled. Well, but have a little patience and I willwarrant you I will make out my claim. First then, if wisdom (as must beconfessed) is no more than a readiness of doing good, and an expeditemethod of becoming serviceable to the world, to whom does this virtuemore properly belong? To the wise man, who partly out of modesty, partlyout of cowardice, can proceed resolutely in no attempt; or to the fool, that goes hand over head, leaps before he looks, and so ventures throughthe most hazardous undertaking without any sense or prospect of danger?In the undertaking any enterprize the wise man shall run to consult withhis books, and daze himself with poring upon musty authors, while thedispatchful fool shall rush blundy on, and have done the business, whilethe other is thinking of it. For the two greatest lets and impedimentsto the issue of any performance are modesty, which casts a mist beforemen's eyes; and fear, which makes them shrink back, and recede from anyproposal: both these are banished and cashiered by Folly, and in theirstead such a habit of fool-hardiness introduced, as mightily contributesto the success of all enterprizes. Farther, if you will have wisdomtaken in the other sense, of being a right judgment of things, you shallsee how short wise men fall of it in this acceptation. 

First, then, it is certain that all things, like so many Janus's, carrya double face, or rather bear a false aspect, most things being reallyin themselves far different from what they are in appearance to others:so as that which at first blush proves alive, is in truth dead; andthat again which appears as dead, at a nearer view proves to be alive:beautiful seems ugly, wealthy poor, scandalous is thought creditable, prosperous passes for unlucky, friendly for what is most opposite, andinnocent for what is hurtful and pernicious. In short, if we change thetables, all things are found placed in a quite different posture fromwhat just before they appeared to stand in. 

If this seem too darkly and unintelligibly expressed, I will explain itby the familiar instance of some great king or prince, whom every oneshall suppose to swim in a luxury of wealth, and to be a powerful lordand master; when, alas, on the one hand he has poverty of spirit enoughto make him a mere beggar, and on the other side he is worse than agalley-slave to his own lusts and passions. 

If I had a mind farther to expatiate, I could enlarge upon severalinstances of like nature, but this one may at present suffice. 

Well, but what is the meaning (will some say) of all this? Why, observethe application. If any one in a play-house be so impertinent and rudeas to rifle the actors of their borrowed clothes, make them lay down thecharacter assumed, and force them to return to their naked selves, wouldnot such a one wholly discompose and spoil the entertainment? And wouldhe not deserve to be hissed and thrown stones at till the pragmaticalfool could learn better manners? For by such a disturbance the wholescene will be altered: such as acted the men will perhaps appear to bewomen: he that was dressed up for a young brisk lover, will be found arough old fellow; and he that represented a king, will remain but a meanordinary serving-man. The laying things thus open is marring all thesport, which consists only in counterfeit and disguise. Now the world isnothing else but such another comedy, where every one in the tire-roomis first habited suitably to the part he is to act; and as it issuccessively their turn, out they come on the stage, where he that nowpersonates a prince, shall in another part of the same play alter hisdress, and become a beggar, all things being in a mask and particulardisguise, or otherwise the play could never be presented Now if thereshould arise any starched, formal don, that would point at the severalactors, and tell how this, that seems a petty god, is in truth worsethan a brute, being made captive to the tyranny of passion; that theother, who bears the character of a king, is indeed the most slavish ofserving-men, in being subject to the mastership of lust and sensuality;that a third, who vaunts so much of his pedigree, is no better thana bastard for degenerating from virtue, which ought to be of greatestconsideration in heraldry, and so shall go on in exposing all therest; would not any one think such a person quite frantic, and ripe forbedlam? For as nothing is more silly than preposterous wisdom, sois there nothing more indiscreet than an unreasonable reproof. Andtherefore he is to be hooted out of all society that will not bepliable, conformable, and willing to suit his humour with other men's, remembering the law of clubs and meetings, that he who will not do asthe rest must get him out of the company. And it is certainly one greatdegree of wisdom for every one to consider that he is but a man, andtherefore he should not pitch his soaring thoughts beyond the level ofmortality, but imp the wings of his towering ambition, and obliginglysubmit and condescend to the weakness of others, it being many times apiece of complaisance to go out of the road for company's sake. 

[Illustration: 126]

No (say you), this is a grand piece of Folly: true, but yet all ourliving is no more than such kind of fooling: which though it may seemharsh to assert, yet it is not so strange as true. 

For the better making it out it might perhaps be requisite to invoke theaid of the muses, to whom the poets devoutly apply themselves upon farmore slender occasions. Come then and assist, ye Heliconian lasses, while I attempt to prove that there is no method for an arrival atwisdom, and consequently no track to the goal of happiness, without theinstructions and directions of Folly. 

And here, in the first place it has been already acknowledged, that allthe passions are listed under my regiment, since this is resolved to bethe only distinction betwixt a wise man and a fool, that this latteris governed by passion, the other guided by reason: and therefore theStoics look upon passions no other than as the infection and maladyof the soul that disorders the constitution of the whole man, and byputting the spirits into a feverish ferment many times occasion somemortal distemper. And yet these, however decried, are not only ourtutors to instruct us towards the attainment of wisdom, but evenbolden us likewise, and spur us on to a quicker dispatch of all ourundertakings. This, I suppose, will be stomached by the stoical Seneca, who pretends that the only emblem of wisdom is the man without passion;whereas the supposing any person to be so, is perfectly to unman him, orelse transforming him into some fabulous deity that never was, norever will be; nay, to speak more plain, it is but the making him a merestatue, immoveable, senseless, and altogether inactive. And if this betheir wise man, let them take him to themselves, and remove him intoPlato's commonwealth, the new Atlantis, or some other-like fairy land. For who would not hate and avoid such a person as should be deaf to allthe dictates of common sense? that should have no more power of love orpity than a block or stone, that remains heedless of all dangers? thatthinks he can never mistake, but can foresee all contingencies at thegreatest distance, and make provision for the worst presages? that feedsupon himself and his own thoughts, that monopolises health, wealth, power, dignity, and all to himself? that loves no man, nor is belovedof any? that has the impudence to tax even divine providence of illcontrivance, and proudly grudges, nay, tramples under foot all othermen's reputation; and this is he that is the Stoic's complete wise man. But prithee what city would choose such a magistrate? what army would bewilling to serve under such a commander? or what woman would be contentwith such a do-little husband? who would invite such a guest? or whatservant would be retained by such a master? The most illiterate mechanicwould in all respects be a more acceptable man, who would be frolicsomewith his wife, free with his friends, jovial at a feast, pliable inconverse, and obliging to all company. But I am tired out with this partof my subject, and so must pass to some other topics. 

[Illustration: 131-132]

And now were any one placed on that tower, from whence Jove is fanciedby the poets to survey the world, he would all around discern how manygrievances and calamities our whole life is on every side encompassedwith: how unclean our birth, how troublesome our tendance in the cradle, how liable our childhood is to a thousand misfortunes, how toilsome andfull of drudgery our riper years, how heavy and uncomfortable our oldage, and lastly, how unwelcome the unavoidableness of death. Farther, inevery course of life how many wracks there may be of torturing diseases, how many unhappy accidents may casually occur, how many unexpecteddisasters may arise, and what strange alterations may one momentproduce? Not to mention such miseries as men are mutually the cause of, as poverty, imprisonment, slander, reproach, revenge, treachery, malice, cousenage, deceit, and so many more, as to reckon them all would be aspuzzling arithmetic as the numbering of the sands. 

[Illustration: 138]

How mankind became environed with such hard circumstances, or what deityimposed these plagues, as a penance on rebellious mortals, I am notnow at leisure to enquire: but whoever seriously takes them intoconsideration must needs commend the valour of the Milesian virgins, whovoluntarily killed themselves to get rid of a troublesome world: andhow many wise men have taken the same course of becoming their ownexecutioners; among whom, not to mention Diogenes, Xenocrates, Cato, Cassius, Brutus, and other heroes, the self-denying Chiron is neverenough to be commended; who, when he was offered by Apollo the privilegeof being exempted from death, and living on to the world's end, herefused the enticing proposal, as deservedly thinking it a punishmentrather than a reward. 

But if all were thus wise you see how soon the world would be unpeopled, and what need there would be of a second Prometheus, to plaister upthe decayed image of mankind. I therefore come and stand in this gapof danger, and prevent farther mischief; partly by ignorance, partly byinadvertence; by the oblivion of whatever would be grating to remember, and the hopes of whatever may be grateful to expect, together palliatingall griefs with an intermixture of pleasure; whereby I make men so farfrom being weary of their lives, that when their thread is spun to itsfull length, they are yet unwilling to die, and mighty hardly broughtto take their last farewell of their friends. Thus some decrepit oldfellows, that look as hollow as the grave into which they are falling, that rattle in the throat at every word they speak, that can eat no meatbut what is tender enough to suck, that have more hair on their beardthan they have on their head, and go stooping toward the dust they mustshortly return to; whose skin seems already drest into parchment, andtheir bones already dried to a skeleton; these shadows of men shallbe wonderful ambitious of living longer, and therefore fence off theattacks of death with all imaginable sleights and impostures; one shallnew dye his grey hairs, for fear their colour should betray his age;another shall spruce himself up in a light periwig; a third shall repairthe loss of his teeth with an ivory set; and a fourth perhaps shall falldeeply in love with a young girl, and accordingly court her with as muchof gaiety and briskness as the liveliest spark in the whole town: andwe cannot but know, that for an old man to marry a young wife without aportion, to be a cooler to other men's lust, is grown so common, that itis become the a-la-mode of the times. And what is yet more comical, youshall have some wrinkled old women, whose very looks are a sufficientantidote to lechery, that shall be canting out, _Ah, life is a sweetthing_, and so run a caterwauling, and hire some strong-backed stallionsto recover their almost lost sense of feeling; and to set themselvesoff the better, they shall paint and daub their faces, always standa tricking up themselves at their looking-glass, go naked-necked, bare-breasted, be tickled at a smutty jest, dance among the young girls, write love-letters, and do all the other little knacks of decoyinghot-blooded suitors; and in the meanwhile, however they are laughed at, they enjoy themselves to the full, live up to their hearts' desire, andwant for nothing that may complete their happiness. As for those thatthink them herein so ridiculous, I would have them give an ingenuousanswer to this one query, whether if folly or hanging were left to theirchoice, they had not much rather live like fools, than die like dogs?But what matter is it if these things are resented by the vulgar? Theirill word is no injury to fools, who are either altogether insensible ofany affront, or at least lay it not much to heart. If they were knockedon the head, or had their brains dashed out, they would have some causeto complain; but alas, slander, calumny, and disgrace, are no other wayinjurious than as they are interpreted; nor otherwise evil, than as theyare thought to be so: what harm is it then if all persons deride andscoff you, if you bear but up in your own thoughts, and be yourselfthoroughly conceited of your deserts? And prithee, why should it bethought any scandal to be a fool, since the being so is one part of ournature and essence; and as so, our not being wise can no more reasonablybe imputed as a fault, than it would be proper to laugh at a man becausehe cannot fly in the air like birds and fowls; because he goes not onall four as beasts of the field; because he does not wear a pair ofvisible horns as a crest on his forehead, like bulls or stags: by thesame figure we may call a horse unhappy, because he was never taughthis grammar; and an ox miserable, for that he never learnt to fence: butsure as a horse for not knowing a letter is nevertheless valuable, so aman, for being a fool, is never the more unfortunate, it being by natureand providence so ordained for each. 

[Illustration: 142]

Ay, but (say our patrons of wisdom) the knowledge of arts and sciencesis purposely attainable by men, that the defect of natural parts may besupplied by the help of acquired: as if it were probable that nature, which had been so exact and curious in the mechanism of flowers, herbs, and flies, should have bungled most in her masterpiece, and made manas it were by halves, to be afterward polished and refined by his ownindustry, in the attainment of such sciences as the Egyptians feignedwere invented by their god Theuth, as a sure plague and punishment tomankind, being so far from augmenting their happiness, that they do notanswer that end they were first designed for, which was the improvementof memory, as Plato in his Phaedrus does wittily observe. 

In the first golden age of the world there was no need of theseperplexities; there was then no other sort of learning but what wasnaturally collected from every man's common sense, improved by an easyexperience. What use could there have been of grammar, when all menspoke the same mother-tongue, and aimed at no higher pitch of oratory, than barely to be understood by each other? What need of logic, whenthey were too wise to enter into any dispute? Or what occasion forrhetoric, where no difference arose to require any laborious decision?And as little reason had they to be tied up by any laws, since thedictates of nature and common morality were restraint and obligationsufficient: and as to all the mysteries of providence, they made themrather the object of their wonder, than their curiosity; and thereforewere not so presumptuous as to dive into the depths of nature, to labourfor the solving all phenomena in astronomy, or to wrack their brainsin the splitting of entities, and unfolding the nicest speculations, judging it a crime for any man to aim at what is put beyond the reach ofhis shallow apprehension. 

[Illustration: 147]

Thus was ignorance, in the infancy of the world, as much the parent ofhappiness as it has been since of devotion: but as soon as the goldenage began by degrees to degenerate into more drossy metals, then werearts likewise invented; yet at first but few in number, and those rarelyunderstood, till in farther process of time the superstition ofthe Chaldeans, and the curiosity of the Grecians, spawned so manysubtleties, that now it is scarce the work of an age to be thoroughlyacquainted with all the criticisms in grammar only. And among all theseveral Arts, those are proportionably most esteemed that come nearestto weakness and folly. For thus divines may bite their nails, andnaturalists may blow their fingers, astrologers may know their ownfortune is to be poor, and the logician may shut his fist and grasp thewind. 

 While all these hard-named fellows cannot make So great a figure as a single quack. 

And in this profession, those that have most confidence, though theleast skill, shall be sure of the greatest custom; and indeed this wholeart as it is now practised, is but one incorporated compound of craftand imposture. 

Next to the physician comes (he, who perhaps will commence a suit withme for not being placed before him, I mean) the lawyer, who is so sillyas to be _ignoramus_ to a proverb, and yet by such are all difficultiesresolved, all controversies determined, and all affairs managed so muchto their own advantage, that they get those estates to themselves whichthey are employed to recover for their clients: while the poor divinein the mean time shall have the lice crawl upon his thread-bare gown, before, by all his sweat and drudgery, he can get money enough topurchase a new one. As those arts therefore are most advantageous totheir respective professors which are farthest distant from wisdom, soare those persons incomparably most happy that have least to do withany at all, but jog on in the common road of nature, which will nevermislead us, except we voluntarily leap over those boundaries which shehas cautiously set to our finite beings. Nature glitters most in herown plain, homely garb, and then gives the greatest lustre when she isunsullied from all artificial garnish. 

[Illustration: 151]

Thus if we enquire into the state of all dumb creatures, we shall findthose fare best that are left to nature's conduct: as to instance inbees, what is more to be admired than the industry and contrivance ofthese little animals?

What architect could ever form so curious a structure as they give amodel of in their inimitable combs? What kingdom can be governed withbetter discipline than they exactly observe in their respective hives?While the horse, by turning a rebel to nature, and becoming a slaveto man, undergoes the worst of tyranny: he is sometimes spurred on tobattle so long till he draw his guts after him for trapping, and at lastfalls down, and bites the ground instead of grass; not to mention thepenalty of his jaws being curbed, his tail docked, his back wrung, hissides spur-galled, his close imprisonment in a stable, his rapshin andfetters when he runs a grass, and a great many other plagues, whichhe might have avoided, if he had kept to that first station of freedomwhich nature placed him in. How much more desirable is the unconfinedrange of flies and birds, who living by instinct, would want nothingto complete their happiness, if some well-employed Domitian would notpersecute the former, nor the sly fowler lay snares and gins for theentrapping of the other? And if young birds, before their unfledgedwings can carry them from their nests, are caught, and pent up in acage, for the being taught to sing, or whistle, all their new tunes makenot half so sweet music as their wild notes, and natural melody: so muchdoes that which is but rough-drawn by nature surpass and excel all theadditional paint and varnish of art And we cannot sure but commendand admire that Pythagorean cock, which (as Lucian relates) had beensuccessively a man, a woman, a prince, a subject, a fish, a horse, anda frog; after all his experience, he summed up his judgment in thiscensure, that man was the most wretched and deplorable of all creatures, all other patiently grazing within the enclosures of nature, while manonly broke out, and strayed beyond those safer limits, which he wasjustly confined to. And Gryllus is to be adjudged wiser than themuch-counselling Ulysses, in as much as when by the enchantment of Circehe had been turned into a hog, he would not lay down his swinishness, nor forsake his beloved sty, to run the peril of a hazardous voyage. For a farther confirmation whereof I have the authority of Homer, thatcaptain of all poetry, who, as he gives to mankind in general, theepithet of wretched and unhappy, so he bestows in particular uponUlysses the title of miserable, which he never attributes to Paris, Ajax, Achilles, or any other of the commanders; and that for thisreason, because Ulysses was more crafty, cautious, and wise, than any ofthe rest. 

[Illustration: 156]

As those therefore fall shortest of happiness that reach highestat wisdom, meeting with the greater repulse for soaring beyond theboundaries of their nature, and without remembering themselves to be butmen, like the fallen angels, daring them to vie with Omnipotence, andgiant-like scale heaven with the engines of their own brain; so arethose most exalted in the road of bliss that degenerate nearest intobrutes, and quietly divest themselves of all use and exercise of reason. 

And this we can prove by a familiar instance. As namely, can there beany one sort of men that enjoy themselves better than those which wecall idiots, changelings, fools and naturals? It may perhaps soundharsh, but upon due consideration it will be found abundantly true, thatthese persons in all circumstances fare best, and live most comfortably;as first, they are void of all fear, which is a very great privilegeto be exempted from; they are troubled with no remorse, nor pricks ofconscience; they are not frighted with any bugbear stories of anotherworld; they startle not at the fancied appearance of ghosts, orapparitions; they are not wracked with the dread of impending mischiefs, nor bandied with the hopes of any expected enjoyments: in short, theyare unassaulted by all those legions of cares that war against the quietof rational souls; they are ashamed of nothing, fear no man, banish theuneasiness of ambition, envy, and love; and to add the reversion of afuture happiness to the enjoyment of a present one, they have no sinneither to answer for; divines unanimously maintaining, that a grossand unavoidable ignorance does not only extenuate and abate from theaggravation, but wholly expiate the guilt of any immorality. 

[Illustration: 159]

Come now then as many of you as challenge the respect of being accountedwise, ingenuously confess how many insurrections of rebellious thoughts, and pangs of a labouring mind, ye are perpetually thrown and torturedwith; reckon up all those inconveniences that you are unavoidablysubject to, and then tell me whether fools, by being exempted fromall these embroilments, are not infinitely more free and happy thanyourselves? Add to this, that fools do not barely laugh, and sing, andplay the good-fellow alone to themselves: but as it is the nature ofgood to be communicative, so they impart their mirth to others, bymaking sport for the whole company they are at any time engaged in, asif providence purposely designed them for an antidote to melancholy:whereby they make all persons so fond of their society, that they arewelcomed to all places, hugged, caressed, and defended, a liberty giventhem of saying or doing anything; so well beloved, that none dares tooffer them the least injury; nay, the most ravenous beasts of prey willpass them by untouched, as if by instinct they were warned that suchinnocence ought to receive no hurt. Farther, their converse is soacceptable in the court of princes, that few kings will banquet, walk, or take any other diversion, without their attendance; nay, and had muchrather have their company, than that of their gravest counsellors, whomthey maintain more for fashion-sake than good-will; nor is it so strangethat these fools should be preferred before graver politicians, sincethese last, by their harsh, sour advice, and ill-timing the truth, arefit only to put a prince out of the humour, while the others laugh, andtalk, and joke, without any danger of disobliging. 

It is one farther very commendable property of fools, that they alwaysspeak the truth, than which there is nothing more noble and heroical. For so, though Plato relate it as a sentence of Alcibiades, that in thesea of drunkenness truth swims uppermost, and so wine is the only tellerof truth, yet this character may more justly be assumed by me, as Ican make good from the authority of Euripides, who lays down this asan axiom _uwpa uwpos heyei_. Children and fools always speak the truth. Whatever the fool has in his heart he betrays it in his face; or whatis more notifying, discovers it by his words: while the wise man, asEuripides observes, carries a double tongue; the one to speak what maybe said, the other what ought to be; the one what truth, the other whatthe time requires: whereby he can in a trice so alter his judgment, as to prove that to be now white, which he had just before swore to beblack; like the satyr at his porridge, blowing hot and cold at the samebreath; in his lips professing one thing, when in his heart he meansanother. 

Furthermore, princes in their greatest splendour seem upon this accountunhappy, in that they miss the advantage of being told the truth, and are shammed off by a parcel of insinuating courtiers, that acquitthemselves as flatterers more than as friends. But some will perchanceobject, that princes do not love to hear the truth, and therefore wisemen must be very cautious how they behave themselves before them, lestthey should take too great a liberty in speaking what is true, ratherthan what is acceptable. This must be confessed, truth indeed is seldompalatable to the ears of kings; yet fools have so great a privilege asto have free leave, not only to speak bare truths, but the most bitterones too; so as the same reproof, which had it come from the mouth of awise man would have cost him his head, being blurted out by a fool, isnot only pardoned, but well taken, and rewarded. For truth has naturallya mixture of pleasure, if it carry with it nothing of offence to theperson whom it is applied to; and the happy knack of ordering it so isbestowed only on fools. 'Tis for the same reason that this sort of menare more fondly beloved by women, who like their tumbling them about, and playing with them, though never so boisterously; pretending to takethat only in jest, which they would have to be meant in earnest, as thatsex is very ingenious in palliating, and dissembling the bent of theirwanton inclinations. 

But to return. An additional happiness of these fools appears fartherin this, that when they have run merrily on to their last stage oflife, they neither find any fear nor feel any pain to die, but marchcontentedly to the other world, where their company sure must be asacceptable as it was here upon earth. 

[Illustration: 164]

Let us draw now a comparison between the condition of a fool and that ofa wise man, and see how infinitely the one outweighs the other. 

Give me any instance then of a man as wise as you can fancy him possibleto be, that has spent all his younger years in poring upon books, andtrudging after learning, in the pursuit whereof he squanders away thepleasantest time of his life in watching, sweat, and fasting; and inhis latter days he never tastes one mouthful of delight, but isalways stingy, poor, dejected, melancholy, burthensome to himself, andunwelcome to others, pale, lean, thin-jawed, sickly, contracting by hissedentariness such hurtful distempers as bring him to an untimely death, like roses plucked before they shatter. Thus have you, the draught of awise man's happiness, more the object of a commiserating pity, than ofan ambitioning envy. 

But now again come the croaking Stoics, and tell me in mood and figure, that nothing is more miserable than the being mad: but the being a foolis the being mad, therefore there is nothing more miserable than thebeing a fool. Alas, this is but a fallacy, the discovery whereof solvesthe force of the whole syllogism. Well then, they argue subtlety, 'tistrue; but as Socrates in Plato makes two Venuses and two Cupids, andshews how their actions and properties ought not to be confounded;so these disputants, if they had not been mad themselves, should havedistinguished between a double madness in others: and there is certainlya great difference in the nature as well as in the degrees of them, andthey are not both equally scandalous: for Horace seems to take delightin one sort, when he says:--

_Does welcome frenzy make me thus mistake?_

And Plato in his Phaedon ranks the madness of poets, of prophets, and oflovers among those properties which conduce to a happy life. And Virgil, in the sixth AEneid, gives this epithet to his industrious AEneas:--

_If you will proceed to these your mad attempts. _

And indeed there is a two-fold sort of madness; the one that which thefuries bring from hell; those that are herewith possessed are hurried onto wars and contentions, by an inexhaustible thirst of power andriches, inflamed to some infamous and unlawful lust, enraged to act theparricide, seduced to become guilty of incest, sacrilege, or someother of those crimson-dyed crimes; or, finally, to be so pricked inconscience as to be lashed and stung with the whips and snakes of griefand remorse. But there is another sort of madness that proceeds fromFolly, so far from being any way injurious or distasteful that it isthoroughly good and desirable; and this happens when by a harmlessmistake in the judgment of things the mind is freed from those careswhich would otherwise gratingly afflict it, and smoothed over witha content and satisfaction it could not under other circumstances sohappily enjoy. And this is that comfortable apathy or insensiblenesswhich Cicero, in an epistle to his friend Atticus, wishes himself masterof, that he might the less take to heart those insufferable outragescommitted by the tyrannizing triumvirate, Lepidus, Antonius, andAugustus. That Grecian likewise had a happy time of it, who was sofrantic as to sit a whole day in the empty theatre laughing, shouting, and clapping his hands, as if he had really seen some pathetic tragedyacted to the life, when indeed all was no more than the strength ofimagination, and the efforts of delusion, while in all other respectsthe same person behaved himself very discreetly was, Sweet to his friends, to his wife, obliging, kind, And so averse from a revengeful mind, That had his men unsealed his bottled wine, He would not fret, nor doggedly repine. 

And when by a course of physic he was recovered from this frenzy, helooked upon his cure so far from a kindness, that he thus reasons thecase with his friends:

 This remedy, my friends, is worse i' th' main Than the disease, the cure augments the pain; My only hope is a relapse again, And certainly they were the more mad of the two who endeavoured tobereave him of so pleasing a delirium, and recall all the aches of hishead by dispelling the mists of his brain. 

[Illustration: 169]

[Illustration: 173-174]

I have not yet determined whether it be proper to include all thedefects of sense and understanding under the common genius of madness. For if anyone be so short-sighted as to take a mule for an ass, or soshallowpated as to admire a paltry ballad for an elegant poem, he is notthereupon immediately censured as mad. But if anyone let not only hissenses but his judgment be imposed upon in the most ordinary commonconcerns, he shall come under the scandal of being thought next door toa madman. As suppose any one should hear an ass bray, and should take itfor ravishing music; or if any one, born a beggar, should fancy himselfas great as a prince, or the like. But this sort of madness, if (as ismost usual) it be accompanied with pleasure, brings a great satisfactionboth to those who are possessed with it themselves, and those who derideit in others, though they are not both equally frantic. And this speciesof madness is of larger extent than the world commonly imagines. Thusthe whole tribe of madmen make sport among themselves, while one laughsat another; he that is more mad many times jeering him that is lessso. But indeed the greater each man's madness is, the greater is hishappiness, if it be but such a sort as proceeds from an excess of folly, which is so epidemical a distemper that it is hard to find any one manso uninfected as not to have sometimes a fit or two of some sort offrenzy. There is only this difference between the several patients, hethat shall take a broom-stick for a strait-bodied woman is without moreado sentenced for a madman, because this is so strange a blunder as veryseldom happens; whereas he whose wife is a common jilt, that keeps awarehouse free for all customers, and yet swears she is as chaste as anuntouched virgin, and hugs himself in his contented mistake, is scarcetaken notice of, because he fares no worse than a great many more of hisgood-natured neighbours. Among these are to be ranked such as take animmoderate delight in hunting, and think no music comparable to thesounding of horns and the yelping of beagles; and were they to takephysic, would not question to think the most sovereign virtues to bein the _album Graecum_ of a dog's, turd. When they have run down theirgame, what strange pleasure they take in cutting of it up! Cows andsheep may be slaughtered by common butchers, but what is killed inhunting must be broke up by none under a gentleman, who shall throw downhis hat, fall devoutly on his knees, and drawing out a slashing hanger(for a common knife is not good enough), after several ceremonies shalldissect all the parts as artificially as the best skilled anatomist, while all that stand round shall look very intently, and seem to bemightily surprised with the novelty, though they have seen the same anhundred times before; and he that can but dip his finger, and taste ofthe blood, shall think his own bettered by it: and though the constantfeeding on such diet does but assimilate them to the nature of thosebeasts they eat of, yet they will swear that venison is meat forprinces, and that their living upon it makes them as great as emperors. 

[Illustration: 178]

Near a kin to these are such as take a great fancy for building: theyraise up, pull down, begin anew, alter the model, and never rest tillthey run themselves out of their whole estate, taking up such a compassfor buildings, till they leave themselves not one foot of land to liveupon, nor one poor cottage to shelter themselves from cold and hunger:and yet all the while are mighty proud of their contrivances, and sing asweet _requiem_ to their own happiness. 

To these are to be added those plodding virtuosos, that plunder the mostinward recesses of nature for the pillage of a new invention, and rakeover sea and land for the turning up some hitherto latent mystery; andare so continually tickled with the hopes of success, that they sparefor no cost nor pains, but trudge on, and upon a defeat in one attempt, courageously tack about to another, and fall upon new experiments, nevergiving over till they have calcined their whole estate to ashes, andhave not money enough left unmelted to purchase one crucible or limbeck. And yet after all, they are not so much discouraged, but that theydream fine things still, and animate others what they can to the likeundertakings; nay, when their hopes come to the last gasp, after alltheir disappointments, they have yet one _salvo_ for their credit, that:--

_In great exploits our bare attempts suffice. _

And so inveigh against the shortness of their life, which allows themnot time enough to bring their designs to maturity and perfection. 

[Illustration: Dice Players 182]

[Illustration: Dice Players-2 186]

Whether dice-players may be so favourably dealt with as to be admittedamong the rest is scarce yet resolved upon: but sure it is hugely vainand ridiculous, when we see some persons so devoutly addicted to thisdiversion, that at the first rattle of the box their heart shakes withinthem, and keeps consort with the motion of the dice: they are egg'd onso long with the hopes of always winning, till at last, in a literalsense, they have thrown away their whole estate, and made shipwreck ofall they have, scarce escaping to shore with their own clothes to theirbacks; thinking it in the meanwhile a great piece of religion to be justin the payment of their stakes, and will cheat any creditor sooner thanhim who trusts them in play: and that poring old men, that cannot telltheir cast without the help of spectacles, should be sweating at thesame sport; nay, that such decrepit blades, as by the gout have lostthe use of their fingers, should look over, and hire others to throw forthem. This indeed is prodigiously extravagant; but the consequence of itends so oft in downright madness, that it seems rather to belong to thefuries than to folly. 

The next to be placed among the regiment of fools are such as make atrade of telling or inquiring after incredible stories of miracles andprodigies: never doubting that a lie will choke them, they will musterup a thousand several strange relations of spirits, ghosts, apparitions, raising of the devil, and such like bugbears of superstition, which thefarther they are from being probably true, the more greedily they areswallowed, and the more devoudy believed. And these absurdities do notonly bring an empty pleasure, and cheap divertisement, but they are agood trade, and procure a comfortable income to such priests and friarsas by this craft get their gain. To these again are nearly related suchothers as attribute strange virtues to the shrines and images of saintsand martyrs, and so would make their credulous proselytes believe, thatif they pay their devotion to St. Christopher in the morning, theyshall be guarded and secured the day following from all dangers andmisfortunes: if soldiers, when they first take arms, shall come andmumble over such a set prayer before the picture of St. Barbara, theyshall return safe from all engagements: or if any pray to Erasmus onsuch particular holidays, with the ceremony of wax candles, and otherfopperies, he shall in a short time be rewarded with a plentifulincrease of wealth and riches. The Christians have now their giganticSt. George, as well as the pagans had their Hercules; they paint thesaint on horseback, and drawing the horse in splendid trappings, verygloriously accoutred, they scarce refrain in a literal sense fromworshipping the very beast. What shall I say of such as cry up andmaintain the cheat of pardons and indulgences? that by these compute thetime of each soul's residence in purgatory, and assign them a longer orshorter continuance, according as they purchase more or fewer of thesepaltry pardons, and saleable exemptions? Or what can be said bad enoughof others, who pretend that by the force of such magical charms, orby the fumbling over their beads in the rehearsal of such and suchpetitions (which some religious impostors invented, either fordiversion, or what is more likely for advantage), they shall procureriches, honour, pleasure, health, long life, a lusty old age, nay, afterdeath a sitting at the right hand of our Saviour in His kingdom; thoughas to this last part of their happiness, they care not how long itbe deferred, having scarce any appetite toward a tasting the joys ofheaven, till they are surfeited, glutted with, and can no longer relishtheir enjoyments on earth. By this easy way of purchasing pardons, anynotorious highwayman, any plundering soldier, or any bribe-taking judge, shall disburse some part of their unjust gains, and so think all theirgrossest impieties sufficiently atoned for; so many perjuries, lusts, drunkenness, quarrels, bloodsheds, cheats, treacheries, and all sorts ofdebaucheries, shall all be, as it were, struck a bargain for, and such acontract made, as if they had paid off all arrears, and might now beginupon a new score. 

[Illustration: Devil Teaching St. Bernard 190]

And what can be more ridiculous, than for some others to be confident ofgoing to heaven by repeating daily those seven verses out of the Psalms, which the devil taught St. Bernard, thinking thereby to have put a trickupon him, but that he was over-reached in his cunning. 

Several of these fooleries, which are so gross and absurd, as I myselfam even ashamed to own, are practised and admired, not only by thevulgar, but by such proficients in religion as one might well expectshould have more wit. 

From the same principles of folly proceeds the custom of each country'schallenging their particular guardian-saint; nay, each saint has hisdistinct office allotted to him, and is accordingly addressed to uponthe respective occasions: as one for the tooth-ache, a second to grantan easy delivery in child-birth, a third to help persons to lostgoods, another to protect seamen in a long voyage, a fifth to guard thefarmer's cows and sheep, and so on; for to rehearse all instances wouldbe extremely tedious. 

There are some more catholic saints petitioned to upon all occasions, asmore especially the Virgin Mary, whose blind devotees think it mannersnow to place the mother before the Son. 

And of all the prayers and intercessions that are made to theserespective saints the substance of them is no more than downright Folly. Among all the trophies that for tokens of gratitude are hung upon thewalls and ceilings of churches, you shall find no relics presented asa memorandum of any that were ever cured of Folly, or had been made onedram the wiser. One perhaps after shipwreck got safe to shore; anotherrecovered when he had been run through by an enemy; one, when all hisfellow-soldiers were killed upon the spot, as cunningly perhaps ascowardly, made his escape from the field; another, while he was ahanging, the rope broke, and so he saved his neck, and renewed hislicence for practising his old trade of thieving; another broke gaol, and got loose; a patient, against his physician's will, recovered of adangerous fever; another drank poison, which putting him into a violentlooseness, did his body more good than hurt, to the great grief ofhis wife, who hoped upon this occasion to have become a joyful widow;another had his waggon overturned, and yet none of his horses lamed;another had caught a grievous fall, and yet recovered from the bruise;another had been tampering with his neighbour's wife, and escaped verynarrowly from being caught by the enraged cuckold in the very act. Afterall these acknowledgments of escapes from such singular dangers, thereis none (as I have before intimated) that return thanks for being freedfrom Folly; Folly being so sweet and luscious, that it is rather suedfor as a happiness, than deprecated as a punishment But why should Ilaunch out into so wide a sea of superstitions?

_Had I as many tongues as Argus eyes, Briareus hands, they all would notsuffice Folly in all her shapes t' epitomise. _

Almost all Christians being wretchedly enslaved to blindness andignorance, which the priests are so far from preventing or removing, that they blacken the darkness, and promote the delusion; wiselyforeseeing that the people (like cows, which never give down their milkso well as when they are gently stroked), would part with less if theyknew more, their bounty proceeding only from a mistake of charity. Nowif any grave wise man should stand up, and unseasonably speak the truth, telling every one that a pious life is the only way of securing a happydeath; that the best title to a pardon of our sins is purchased by ahearty abhorrence of our guilt, and sincere resolutions of amendment;that the best devotion which can be paid to any saints is to imitatethem in their exemplary life: if he should proceed thus to inform themof their several mistakes, there would be quite another estimate putupon tears, watchings, masses, fastings, and other severities, whichbefore were so much prized, as persons will now be vexed to lose thatsatisfaction they formerly found in them. 

[Illustration: 194]

In the same predicament of fools are to be ranked such, as while theyare yet living, and in good health, take so great a care how they shallbe buried when they die, that they solemnly appoint how many torches, how many escutcheons, how many gloves to be given, and how many mournersthey will have at their funeral; as if they thought they themselves intheir coffins could be sensible of what respect was paid to theircorpse; or as if they doubted they should rest a whit the less quiet inthe grave if they were with less state and pomp interred. 

Now though I am in so great haste, as I would not willingly be stoppedor detained, yet I cannot pass by without bestowing some remarks uponanother sort of fools; who, though their first descent was perhaps nobetter than from a tapster or tinker, yet highly value themselves upontheir birth and parentage. One fetches his pedigree from AEneas, anotherfrom Brute, a third from king Arthur: they hang up their ancestors'worm-eaten pictures as records of antiquity, and keep a long list oftheir predecessors, with an account of all their offices and tides, while they themselves are but transcripts of their forefathers' dumbstatues, and degenerate even into those very beasts which they carryin their coat of arms as ensigns of their nobility: and yet by a strongpresumption of their birth and quality, they live not only the mostpleasant and unconcerned themselves, but there are not wanting otherstoo who cry up these brutes almost equal to the gods. But why should Idwell upon one or two instances of Folly, when there are so many of likenature. Conceitedness and self-love making many by strength of Fancybelieve themselves happy, when otherwise they are really wretched anddespicable. Thus the most ape-faced, ugliest fellow in the whole town, shall think himself a mirror of beauty: another shall be so proud of hisparts, that if he can but mark out a triangle with a pair of compasses, he thinks he has mastered all the difficulties of geometry, and couldoutdo Euclid himself. A third shall admire himself for a ravishingmusician, though he have no more skill in the handling of any instrumentthan a pig playing on the organs: and another that rattles in the throatas hoarse as a cock crows, shall be proud of his voice, and think hesings like a nightingale. 

[Illustration: 199]

There is another very pleasant sort of madness, whereby persons assumeto themselves whatever of accomplishment they discern in others. Thusthe happy rich churl in Seneca, who had so short a memory, as he couldnot tell the least story without a servant standing by to prompt him, and was at the same time so weak that he could scarce go upright, yet hethought he might adventure to accept a challenge to a duel, because hekept at home some lusty, sturdy fellows, whose strength he relied uponinstead of his own. 

[Illustration: 202]

It is almost needless to insist upon the several professors of arts andsciences, who are all so egregiously conceited, that they would soonergive up their title to an estate in lands, than part with the reversionof their wits: among these, more especially stage-players, musicians, orators, and poets, each of which, the more of duncery they have, andthe more of pride, the greater is their ambition: and how notoriouslysoever dull they be, they meet with their admirers; nay, the moresilly they are the higher they are extolled; Folly (as we have beforeintimated) never failing of respect and esteem. If therefore every one, the more ignorant he is, the greater satisfaction he is to himself, andthe more commended by others, to what purpose is it to sweat and toil inthe pursuit of true learning, which shall cost so many gripes andpangs of the brain to acquire, and when obtained, shall only make thelaborious student more uneasy to himself, and less acceptable to others?

As nature in her dispensation of conceited-ness has dealt with privatepersons, so has she given a particular smatch of self-love to eachcountry and nation. Upon this account it is that the English challengethe prerogative of having the most handsome women, of the being mostaccomplished in the skill of music, and of keeping the best tables: theScotch brag of their gentility, and pretend the genius of their nativesoil inclines them to be good disputants: the French think themselvesremarkable for complaisance and good breeding: the Sorbonists of Parispretend before any others to have made the greatest proficiency inpolemic divinity: the Italians value themselves for learning andeloquence; and, like the Grecians of old, account all the worldbarbarians in respect of themselves; to which piece of vanity theinhabitants of Rome are more especially addicted, pretending themselvesto be owners of all those heroic virtues, which their city so many agessince was deservedly famous for. The Venetians stand upon their birthand pedigree. The Grecians pride themselves in having been the firstinventors of most arts, and in their country being famed for the productof so many eminent philosophers. The Turks, and all the other refuse ofMahometism, pretend they profess the only true religion, and laugh atall Christians for superstitious, narrow-souled fools. The Jews tothis day expect their Messias as devoudy as they believe in their firstprophet Moses. The Spaniards challenge the repute of being accountedgood soldiers. And the Germans are noted for their tall, proper stature, and for their skill in magick. But not to mention any more, I supposeyou are already convinced how great an improvement and addition to thehappiness of human life is occasioned by self-love: next step towhich is flattery; for as self-love is nothing but the coaxing upof ourselves, so the same currying and humouring of others is termedflattery. 

[Illustration: 206]

Flattery, it is true, is now looked upon as a scandalous name, but it isby such only as mind words more than things. They are prejudiced againstit upon this account, because they suppose it justles out all truth andsincerity? whereas indeed its property is quite contrary, as appearsfrom the examples of several brute creatures. What is more fawning thana spaniel?

And yet what is more faithful to his master? What is more fondand loving than a tame squirrel? And yet what is more sporting andinoffensive? This little frisking creature is kept up in a cage to playwithal, while lions, tigers, leopards, and such other savage emblems ofrapine and cruelty are shewn only for state and rarity, and otherwiseyield no pleasure to their respective keepers. 

There is indeed a pernicious destructive sort of flattery wherewithrookers and sharks work their several ends upon such as they can makea prey of, by decoying them into traps and snares beyond recovery: butthat which is the effect of folly is of a much different nature; itproceeds from a softness of spirit, and a flexibleness of good humour, and comes far nearer to virtue than that other extreme of friendship, namely, a stiff, sour, dogged moroseness: it refreshes our minds whentired, enlivens them when melancholy, reinforces them when languishing, invigorates them when heavy, recovers them when sick, and pacifies themwhen rebellious: it puts us in a method how to procure friends, and howto keep them; it entices children to swallow the bitter rudiments oflearning; it gives a new ferment to the almost stagnated souls of oldmen; it both reproves and instructs principles without offence under themask of commendation: in short, it makes every man fond and indulgent ofhimself, which is indeed no small part of each man's happiness, and atthe same time renders him obliging and complaisant in all company, whereit is pleasant to see how the asses rub and scratch one another. 

[Illustration: Asses Scratch One Another 210]

This again is a great accomplishment to an orator, a greater to aphysician, and the only one to a poet: in fine, it is the best sweetenerto all afflictions, and gives a true relish to the otherwise insipidenjoyments of our whole life. Ay, but (say you) to flatter is todeceive; and to deceive is very harsh and hurtful: no, rather justcontrary; nothing is more welcome and bewitching than the beingdeceived. They are much to be blamed for an undistinguishing head, thatmake a judgment of things according to what they are in themselves, whentheir whole nature consists barely in the opinions that are had of them. For all sublunary matters are enveloped in such a cloud of obscurity, that the short-sightedness of human understanding, cannot pry throughand arrive to any comprehensive knowledge of them: hence the sect ofacademic philosophers have modestly resolved, that all things being nomore than probable, nothing can be known as certain; or if there could, yet would it but interrupt and abate from the pleasure of a more happyignorance. Finally, our souls are so fashioned and moulded, that theyare sooner captivated by appearances, than by real truths; of which, if any one would demand an example, he may find a very familiar one inchurches, where, if what is delivered from the pulpit be a grave, solid, rational discourse, all the congregation grow weary, and fall asleep, till their patience be released; whereas if the preacher (pardon theimpropriety of the word, the prater I would have said) be zealous, inhis thumps of the cushion, antic gestures, and spend his glass in thetelling of pleasant stories, his beloved shall then stand up, tuck theirhair behind their ears, and be very devoutly attentive. So among thesaints, those are most resorted to who are most romantic and fabulous:as for instance, a poetic St. George, a St. Christopher, or a St. Barbara, shall be oftener prayed to than St. Peter, St. Paul, nay, perhaps than Christ himself; but this, it is possible, may more properlybe referred to another place. 

[Illustration: 215]

In the mean while observe what a cheap purchase of happiness is made bythe strength of fancy. For whereas many things even of inconsiderablevalue, would cost a great deal of pains and perhaps pelf, to procure;opinion spares charges, and yet gives us them in as ample a manner byconceit, as if we possessed them in reality. Thus he who feeds on sucha stinking dish of fish, as another must hold his nose at a yard'sdistance from, yet if he feed heartily, and relish them palateably, theyare to him as good as if they were fresh caught: whereas on the otherhand, if any one be invited to never so dainty a joul of sturgeon, ifit go against his stomach to eat any, he may sit a hungry, and bite hisnails with greater appetite than his victuals. If a woman be never sougly and nauseous, yet if her husband can but think her handsome, itis all one to him as if she really were so: if any man have never soordinary and smutty a draught, yet if he admires the excellency of it, and can suppose it to have been drawn by some old Apelles, or modernVandyke, he is as proud of it as if it had really been done by oneof their hands. I knew a friend of mine that presented his bride withseveral false and counterfeit stones, making her believe that they wereright jewels, and cost him so many hundred thousand crowns; under hismistake the poor woman was as choice of pebbles, and painted glass, asif they had been so many natural rubies and diamonds, while the subtlehusband saved a great deal in his pocket, and yet made his wife as wellpleased as if he had been at ten hundred times the cost What differenceis there between them that in the darkest dungeon, can with a platonicbrain survey the whole world in idea, and him that stands in the openair, and takes a less deluding prospect of the universe? If the beggarin Lucian, that dreamt he was a prince, had never waked, his imaginarykingdom had been as great as a real one. Between him therefore thattruly is happy, and him that thinks himself so, there is no perceivabledistinction; or if any, the fool has the better of it: first, becausehis happiness costs him less, standing him only in the price of a singlethought; and then, secondly, because he has more fellow-companions andpartakers of his good fortune: for no enjoyment is comfortable wherethe benefit is not imparted to others; nor is any one station of lifedesirable, where we can have no converse with persons of the samecondition with ourselves: and yet this is the hard fate of wise men, whoare grown so scarce, that like Phoenixes, they appear but one in an age. The Grecians, it is true, reckoned up seven within the narrow precinctsof their own country; yet I believe, were they to cast up their accountsanew, they would not find a half, nay, not a third part, of one in farlarger extent. 

[Illustration: 218]

Farther, when among the several good properties of Bacchus this islooked upon as the chief, namely, that he drowns the cares and anxietiesof the mind, though it be indeed but for a short while; for after asmall nap, when our brains are a little settled, they all return totheir former corrodings: how much greater is the more durable advantagewhich I bring? while by one uninterrupted fit of being drunk in conceit, I perpetually cajole the mind with riots, revels, and all the excess andenergy of joy. 

Add to this, that I am so communicative and bountiful, as to let no oneparticular person pass without some token of my favour; whereas otherdeities bestow their gifts sparingly to their elect only. Bacchus hasnot thought fit that every soil should bear the same juice-yieldinggrape: Venus has not given to all a like portion of beauty: Mercuryendows but few with the knack of an accomplished eloquence: Herculesgives not to all the same measure of wealth and riches: Jupiter hasordained but a few to be born to a kingdom: Mars in battle gives acomplete victory but to one party; nay, he often makes them both losers:Apollo does not answer the expectation of all that consult his oracles:Jove oft thunders: Phoebus sometimes shoots the plague, or some otherinfection, at the point of his darts: and Neptune swallows down morethan he bears up: not to mention their Ve-Jupiters, their Plutos, theirAte goddess of loss, their evil geniuses, and such other monsters ofdivinity, as had more of the hangman than the god in them, and wereworshipped only to deprecate that hurt which used to be inflicted bythem: I say, not to mention these, I am that high and mighty goddess, whose liberality is of as large an extent as her omnipotence: I give toall that ask: I never appear sullen, nor out of humour, nor ever demandany atonement or satisfaction for the omission of any ceremoniouspunctilio in my worship: I do not storm or rage, if mortals, intheir addresses to the other gods pass me by unregarded, without theacknowledgment of any respect or application: whereas all the othergods are so scrupulous and exact, that it often proves less dangerousmanfully to despise them, than sneakingly to attempt the difficulty ofpleasing them. Thus some men are of that captious, froward humour, thata man had better be wholly strangers to them, than never so intimatefriends. 

[Illustration: Alter of Folly 222]

Well, but there are none (say you) build any altars, or dedicate anytemple to Folly. I admire (as I have before intimated) that the worldshould be so wretchedly ungrateful. But I am so good natured as to passby and pardon this seeming affront, though indeed the charge thereof, asunnecessary, may well be saved; for to what purpose should I demand thesacrifice of frankincense, cakes, goats, and swine, since all personseverywhere pay me that more acceptable service, which all divinesagree to be more effectual and meritorious, namely, an imitation ofmy communicable attributes? I do not therefore any way envy Diana forhaving her altars bedewed with human blood: I think myself then mostreligiously adored, when my respective devotees (as is their usualcustom) conform themselves to my practice, transcribe my pattern, and solive the copy of me their original. And truly this pious devotion is notso much in use among christians as is much to be wished it were: forhow many zealous votaries are there that pay so profound respect tothe Virgin Mary, as to place lighted tapers even at noon day upon heraltars? And yet how few of them copy after her untouched chastity, hermodesty, and her other commendable virtues, in the imitation whereofconsists the truest esteem of divine worship? Farther, why should Idesire a temple, since the whole world is but one ample continued choir, entirely dedicated to my use and service? Nor do I want worshippers atany place where the earth wants not inhabitants. And as to the manner ofmy worship, I am not yet so irrecoverably foolish, as to be prayed toby proxy, and to have my honour intermediately bestowed upon senselessimages and pictures, which quite subvert the true end of religion; whilethe unwary supplicants seldom distinguish betwixt the things themselvesand the objects they represent The same respect in the meanwhile is paidto me in a more legitimate manner; for to me there are as many statueserected as there are moving fabrics of mortality; every person, evenagainst his own will, carrying the image of me, _i. E. _ the signal ofFolly instamped on his countenance. I have not therefore the leasttempting inducement to envy the more seeming state and splendour of theother gods, who are worshipped at set times and places; as Phoebus atRhodes, Venus in her Cyprian isle, Juno in the city Argos, Minerva atAthens, Jupiter on the hill Olympus, Neptune at Tarentum, and Priapusin the town of Lampsacum; while my worship extending as far as myinfluence, the whole world is my one altar, whereon the most valuableincense and sacrifice is perpetually offered up. 

[Illustration: 226]

But lest I should seem to speak this with more of confidence than truth, let us take a nearer view of the mode of men's lives, whereby it will berendered more apparently evident what largesses I everywhere bestow, andhow much I am respected and esteemed of persons, from the highest to thebasest quality. For the proof whereof, it being too tedious to insistupon each particular, I shall only mention such in general as are mostworthy the remark, from which by analogy we may easily judge of theremainder. And indeed to what purpose would it be singly to recount thecommonalty and rabble of mankind, who beyond all question are entirelyon my side? and for a token of their vassalage do wear my livery inso many older shapes, and more newly invented modes of Folly, that thelungs of a thousand Democrituses would never hold out to such a laughteras this subject would excite; and to these thousand must be superaddedone more, to laugh at them as much as they do at the other. 

[Illustration: 230]

It is indeed almost incredible to relate what mirth, what sport, what diversion, the grovelling inhabitants here on earth give to theabove-seated gods in heaven: for these exalted deities spend theirfasting sober hours in listening to those petitions that are offered up, and in succouring such as they are appealed to by for redress; but whenthey are a little entered at a glass of nectar, they then throw offall serious concerns, and go and place themselves on the ascent of somepromontory in heaven, and from thence survey the little mole-hill ofearth. And trust me, there cannot be a more delightsome prospect, thanto view such a theatre so stuffed and crammed with swarms of fools. Onefalls desperately in love, and the more he is slighted the more does hisspaniel-like passion increase; another is wedded to wealth rather thanto a wife; a third pimps for his own spouse, and is content to bea cuckold so he may wear his horns gilt; a fourth is haunted with ajealousy of his visiting neighbours; another sobs and roars, and playsthe child, for the death of a friend or relation; and lest his own tearsshould not rise high enough to express the torrent of his grief, hehires other mourners to accompany the corpse to the grave, and sing its_requiem_ in sighs and lamentations; another hypocritically weeps at thefuneral of one whose death at heart he rejoices for; here a gluttonouscormorant, whatever he can scrape up, thrusts all into his guts topacify the cryings of a hungry stomach; there a lazy wretch sits yawningand stretching, and thinks nothing so desirable as sleep and idleness;some are extremely industrious in other men's business, and sottishlyneglectful of their own; some think themselves rich because their creditis great, though they can never pay, till they break, and compound fortheir debts; one is so covetous that he lives poor to die rich; one fora little uncertain gain will venture to cross the roughest seas, andexpose his life for the purchase of a livelihood; another will depend onthe plunders of war, rather than on the honest gains of peace; some willclose with and humour such warm old blades as have a good estate, and nochildren of their own to bestow it upon; others practice the same artof wheedling upon good old women, that have hoarded and coffered up morebags than they know how to dispose of; both of these sly flatteries makefine sport for the gods, when they are beat at their own weapons, and(as oft happens) are gulled by those very persons they intended to makea prey of. 

There is another sort of base scoundrels in gentility, such scrapingmerchants, who although, for the better vent of their commodities theylie, swear, cheat, and practice all the intrigues of dishonesty, yetthink themselves no way inferior to persons of the highest quality, onlybecause they have raked together a plentiful estate; and there are notwanting such insinuating hangers on, as shall caress and complimentthem with the greatest respect, in hopes to go snacks in some of theirdishonest gains; there are others so infected with the philosophicalparadox of banishing property, and having all things in common, thatthey make no conscience of fastening on, and purloining whatever theycan get, and converting it to their own use and possession; there aresome who are rich only in wishes, and yet while they barely dreamof vast mountains of wealth, they are as happy as if their imaginaryfancies commenced real truths; some put on the best side outermost, andstarve themselves at home to appear gay and splendid abroad; one withan open-handed freedom spends all he lays his fingers on; another witha logic-fisted gripingness catches at and grasps all he can come withinthe reach of; one apes it about in the streets to court popularity;another consults his ease, and sticks to the confinement of achimney-corner; many others are tugging hard at law for a trifle, anddrive on an endless suit, only to enrich a deferring judge, or a knavishadvocate; one is for new-modelling a settled government; another is forsome notable heroical attempt; and a third by all means must travel apilgrim to Rome, Jerusalem, or some shrine of a saint elsewhere, thoughhe have no other business than the paying of a formal impertinent visit, leaving his wife and children to fast, while he himself forsooth is goneto pray. 

[Illustration: 234]

In short, if (as Lucian fancies Menippus to have done heretofore, ) anyman could now again look down from the orb of the moon, he would seethick swarms as it were of flies and gnats, that were quarrelling witheach other, justling, fighting, fluttering, skipping, playing, just newproduced, soon after decaying, and then immediately vanishing; and itcan scarce be thought how many tumults and tragedies so inconsiderate acreature as man does give occasion to, and that in so short a space asthe small span of life; subject to so many casualties, that the sword, pestilence, and other epidemic accidents, shall many times sweep awaywhole thousands at a brush. 

[Illustration: 238]

But hold; I should but expose myself too far, and incur the guilt ofbeing roundly laughed at, if I proceed to enumerate the several kindsof the folly of the vulgar. I shall confine therefore my followingdiscourse only to such as challenge the repute of wisdom, and seeminglypass for men of the soundest intellectuals. Among whom the Grammarianspresent themselves in the front, a sort of men who would be the mostmiserable, the most slavish, and the most hateful of all persons, ifI did not in some way alleviate the pressures and miseries of theirprofession by blessing them with a bewitching sort of madness: for theyare not only liable to those five curses, which they so oft recite fromthe first five verses of Homer, but to five hundred more of a worsenature; as always damned to thirst and hunger, to be choked with dustin their unswept schools (schools, shall I term them, or ratherelaboratories, nay, bridewells, and houses of correction?), to wear outthemselves in fret and drudgery; to be deafened with the noise of gapingboys; and in short, to be stifled with heat and stench; and yet theycheerfully dispense with all these inconveniences, and, by the help ofa fond conceit, think themselves as happy as any men living: taking agreat pride and delight in frowning and looking big upon the tremblingurchins, in boxing, slashing, striking with the ferula, and in theexercise of all their other methods of tyranny; while thus lording itover a parcel of young, weak chits, they imitate the Cuman ass, andthink themselves as stately as a lion, that domineers over all theinferior herd. Elevated with this conceit, they can hold filth andnastiness to be an ornament; can reconcile their nose to the mostintolerable smells; and finally, think their wretched slavery the mostarbitrary kingdom, which they would not exchange for the jurisdictionof the most sovereign potentate: and they are yet more happy by astrong persuasion of their own parts and abilities; for thus when theiremployment is only to rehearse silly stories, and poetical fictions, they will yet think themselves wiser than the best experiencedphilosopher; nay, they have an art of making ordinary people, such astheir school boys' fond parents, to think them as considerable as theirown pride has made them. Add hereunto this other sort of ravishingpleasure: when any of them has found out who was the mother of Anchises, or has lighted upon some old unusual word, such as _bubsequa, bovinator, manticulator_, or other like obsolete cramp terms; or can, after a greatdeal of poring, spell out the inscription of some battered monument;Lord! what joy, what triumph, what congratulating their success, as ifthey had conquered Africa, or taken Babylon the Great! When they recitesome of their frothy, bombast verses, if any happen to admire them, theyare presendy flushed with the least hint of commendation, and devoudythank Pythagoras for his grateful hypothesis, whereby they are nowbecome actuated with a descent of Virgil's poetic soul. Nor is anydivertisement more pleasant, than when they meet to flatter and curryone another; yet they are so critical, that if any one hap to be guiltyof the least slip, or seeming blunder, another shall presendy correcthim for it, and then to it they go in a tongue-combat, with all thefervour, spleen, and eagerness imaginable. May Priscian himself be myenemy if what I am now going to say be not exactly true. I knew anold Sophister that was a Grecian, a latinist, a mathematician, aphilosopher, a musician, and all to the utmost perfection, who, afterthreescore years' experience in the world, had spent the last twenty ofthem only in drudging to conquer the criticisms of grammar, and madeit the chief part of his prayers, that his life might be so long sparedtill he had learned how righdy to distinguish betwixt the eight parts ofspeech, which no grammarian, whether Greek or Latin, had yet accuratelydone. If any chance to have placed that as a conjunction which ought tohave been used as an adverb, it is a sufficient alarm to raise a warfor doing justice to the injured word. And since there have been as manyseveral grammars, as particular grammarians (nay, more, for Aldus alonewrote five distinct grammars for his own share), the schoolmaster mustbe obliged to consult them all, sparing for no time nor trouble, thoughnever so great, lest he should be otherwise posed in an unobservedcriticism, and so by an irreparable disgrace lose the reward of all histoil. It is indifferent to me whether you call this folly or madness, since you must needs confess that it is by my influence theseschool-tyrants, though in never so despicable a condition, are so happyin their own thoughts, that they would not change fortunes with the mostillustrious Sophi of Persia. 

[Illustration: 242]

The Poets, however somewhat less beholden to me, own a professeddependence on me, being a sort of lawless blades, that by prescriptionclaim a license to a proverb, while the whole intent of their professionis only to smooth up and tickle the ears of fools, that by mere toys andfabulous shams, with which (however ridiculous) they are so bolsteredup in an airy imagination, as to promise themselves an everlasting name, and promise, by their balderdash, at the same time to celebrate thenever-dying memory of others. To these rapturous wits self-love andflattery are never-failing attendants; nor do any prove more zealous orconstant devotees to folly. 

The Rhetoricians likewise, though they are ambitious of being rankedamong the Philosophers, yet are apparently of my faction, as appearsamong other arguments, by this more especially; in that among theirseveral topics of completing the art of oratory, they all particularlyinsist upon the knack of jesting, which is one species of folly; as isevident from the books of oratory wrote to Herennius, put among Cicero'swork, but done by some other unknown author; and in Quintilian, that great master of eloquence, there is one large chapter spent inprescribing the methods of raising laughter: in short, they may wellattribute a great efficacy to folly, since on any argument they can manytimes by a slight laugh over what they could never seriously confute. 

Of the same gang are those scribbling fops, who think to eternize theirmemory by setting up for authors: among which, though they are all someway indebted to me, yet are those more especially so, who spoil paper inblotting it with mere trifles and impertinences. For as to those graverdrudgers to the press, that write learnedly, beyond the reach of anordinary reader, who durst submit their labours to the review of themost severe critic, these are not so liable to be envied for theirhonour, as to be pitied for their sweat and slavery. They makeadditions, alterations, blot out, write anew, amend, interline, turn itupside down, and yet can never please their fickle judgment, but thatthey shall dislike the next hour what they penned the former; and allthis to purchase the airy commendations of a few understanding readers, which at most is but a poor reward for all their fastings, watchings, confinements, and brain-breaking tortures of invention. Add to thisthe impairing of their health, the weakening of their constitution, their contracting sore eyes, or perhaps turning stark blind; theirpoverty, their envy, their debarment from all pleasures, their hasteningon old age, their untimely death, and what other inconveniences of alike or worse nature can be thought upon: and yet the recompense for allthis severe penance is at best no more than a mouthful or two of frothypraise. These, as they are more laborious, so are they less happy thanthose other hackney scribblers which I first mentioned, who never standmuch to consider, but write what comes next at a venture, knowing thatthe more silly their composures are, the more they will be bought up bythe greater number of readers, who are fools and blockheads: and if theyhap to be condemned by some few judicious persons, it is an easy matterby clamour to drown their censure, and to silence them by urging themore numerous commendations of others. They are yet the wisest whotranscribe whole discourses from others, and then reprint them as theirown. By doing so they make a cheap and easy seizure to themselves ofthat reputation which cost the first author so much time and trouble toprocure. If they are at any time pricked a little in conscience for fearof discovery, they feed themselves however with this hope, that if theybe at last found plagiaries, yet at least for some time they have thecredit of passing for the genuine authors. It is pleasant to see how allthese several writers are puffed up with the least blast of applause, especially if they come to the honour of being pointed at as they walkalong the streets, when their several pieces are laid open upon everybookseller's stall, when their names are embossed in a differentcharacter upon the tide-page, sometime only with the two first letters, and sometime with fictitious cramp terms, which few shall understand themeaning of; and of those that do, all shall not agree in their verdictof the performance; some censuring, others approving it, men's judgmentsbeing as different as their palates, that being toothsome to one whichis unsavoury and nauseous to another: though it is a sneaking piece ofcowardice for authors to put feigned names to their works, as if, likebastards of their brain, they were afraid to own them. Thus one styleshimself Telemachus, another Stelenus, a third Polycrates, anotherThrasyma-chus, and so on. By the same liberty we may ransack the wholealphabet, and jumble together any letters that come next to hand. It isfarther very pleasant when these coxcombs employ their pens in writingcongratulatory episdes, poems, and panegyricks, upon each other, whereinone shall be complimented with the title of Alcaeus, another shall becharactered for the incomparable Callimachus; this shall be commendedfor a completer orator than Tully himself; a fourth shall be told by hisfellow-fool that the divine Plato comes short of him for a philosophicsoul. Sometime again they take up the cudgels, and challenge out anantagonist, and so get a name by a combat at dispute and controversy, while the unwary readers draw sides according to their differentjudgments: the longer the quarrel holds the more irreconcilable itgrows; and when both parties are weary, they each pretend themselves theconquerors, and both lay claim to the credit of coming off with victory. These fooleries make sport for wise men, as being highly absurd, ridiculous and extravagant True, but yet these paper-combatants, by myassistance, are so flushed with a conceit of their own greatness, thatthey prefer the solving of a syllogism before the sacking of Carthage;and upon the defeat of a poor objection carry themselves more triumphantthan the most victorious Scipio. 

[Illustration: 250]

Nay, even the learned and more judicious, that have wit enough to laughat the other's folly, are very much beholden to my goodness; which(except ingratitude have drowned their ingenuity), they must be readyupon all occasions to confess. Among these I suppose the lawyers willshuffle in for precedence, and they of all men have the greatest conceitof their own abilities. They will argue as confidently as if theyspoke gospel instead of law; they will cite you six hundred severalprecedents, though not one of them come near to the case in hand; theywill muster up the authority of judgments, deeds, glosses, and reports, and tumble over so many musty records, that they make their employ, though in itself easy, the greatest slavery imaginable; alwaysaccounting that the best plea which they have took most pains for. 

[Illustration: 254]

[Illustration: 257]

To these, as bearing great resemblance to them, may be added logiciansand sophisters, fellows that talk as much by rote as a parrot; who shallrun down a whole gossiping of old women, nay, silence the very noise ofa belfry, with louder clappers than those of the steeple; and if theirunappeasable clamorousness were their only fault it would admit of someexcuse; but they are at the same time so fierce and quarrelsome, thatthey will wrangle bloodily for the least trifle, and be so over intentand eager, that they many times lose their game in the chase and frightaway that truth they are hunting for. Yet self-conceit makes thesenimble disputants such doughty champions, that armed with three or fourclose-linked syllogisms, they shall enter the lists with the greatestmasters of reason, and not question the foiling of them in anirresistible way, nay, their obstinacy makes them so confident of theirbeing in the right, that all the arguments in the world shall neverconvince them to the contrary. 

Next to these come the philosophers in their long beards and shortcloaks, who esteem themselves the only favourites of wisdom, and lookupon the rest of mankind as the dirt and rubbish of the creation: yetthese men's happiness is only a frantic craziness of brain; they buildcastles in the air, and infinite worlds in a _vacuum_. They will giveyou to a hair's breadth the dimensions of the sun, moon, and stars, aseasily as they would do that of a flaggon or pipkin: they will give apunctual account of the rise of thunder, of the origin of winds, ofthe nature of eclipses, and of all the other abstrusest difficultiesin physics, without the least demur or hesitation, as if they had beenadmitted into the cabinet council of nature, or had been eye-witnessesto all the accurate methods of creation; though alas nature doesbut laugh at all their puny conjectures; for they never yet made oneconsiderable discovery, as appears in that they are unanimously agreedin no one point of the smallest moment; nothing so plain or evident butwhat by some or other is opposed and contradicted. But though they areignorant of the artificial contexture of the least insect, they vaunthowever, and brag that they know all things, when indeed they are unableto construe the mechanism of their own body: nay, when they are sopurblind as not to be able to see a stone's cast before them, yet theyshall be as sharp-sighted as possible in spying-out ideas, universalsseparate forms, first matters, quiddities, formalities, and a hundredsuch like niceties, so diminutively small, that were not their eyesextremely magnifying, all the art of optics could never make themdiscernible. But they then most despise the low grovelling vulgarwhen they bring out their parallels, triangles, circles, and othermathematical figures, drawn up in battalia, like so many spellsand charms of conjuration in muster, with letters to refer to theexplication of the several problems; hereby raising devils as itwere, only to have the credit of laying them, and amusing the ordinaryspectators into wonder, because they have not wit enough to understandthe juggle. Of these some undertake to profess themselves judicialastrologers, pretending to keep correspondence with the stars, and sofrom their information can resolve any query; and though it is all but apresumptuous imposture, yet some to be sure will be so great fools as tobelieve them. 

[Illustration: 262]

The divines present themselves next; but it may perhaps be most safe topass them by, and not to touch upon so harsh a string as this subjectwould afford. Beside, the undertaking may be very hazardous; for theyare a sort of men generally very hot and passionate; and should Iprovoke them, I doubt not would set upon me with a full cry, and forceme with shame to recant, which if I stubbornly refuse to do, they willpresently brand me for a heretic, and thunder out an excommunication, which is their spiritual weapon to wound such as lift up a hand againstthem. It is true, no men own a less dependence on me, yet have theyreason to confess themselves indebted for no small obligations. For itis by one of my properties, self-love, that they fancy themselves, withtheir elder brother Paul, caught up into the third heaven, from whence, like shepherds indeed, they look down upon their flock, the laity, grazing as it were, in the vales of the world below. They fencethemselves in with so many surrounders of magisterial definitions, conclusions, corollaries, propositions explicit and implicit, thatthere is no falling in with them; or if they do chance to be urged to aseeming non-plus, yet they find out so many evasions, that all the artof man can never bind them so fast, but that an easy distinction shallgive them a starting-hole to escape the scandal of being baffled. Theywill cut asunder the toughest argument with as much ease as Alexanderdid the gordian knot; they will thunder out so many rattling termsas shall fright an adversary into conviction. They are exquisitelydexterous in unfolding the most intricate mysteries; they will tellyou to a tittle all the successive proceedings of Omnipotence in thecreation of the universe; they will explain the precise manner oforiginal sin being derived from our first parents; they will satisfy youin what manner, by what degrees, and in how long a time, our Saviour wasconceived in the Virgin's womb, and demonstrate in the consecrated waferhow accidents may subsist without a subject. Nay, these are accountedtrivial, easy questions; they have yet far greater difficulties behind, which notwithstanding they solve with as much expedition as the former;as namely, whether supernatural generation requires any instant of timefor its acting? whether Christ, as a son, bears a double specificallydistinct relation to God the Father, and his virgin mother? whetherthis proposition is possible to be true, the first person of the Trinityhated the second? whether God, who took our nature upon him in the formof a man, could as well have become a woman, a devil, a beast, a herb, or a stone? and were it so possible that the Godhead had appeared in anyshape of an inanimate substance, how he should then have preached hisgospel? or how have been nailed to the cross? whether if St. Peter hadcelebrated the eucharist at the same time our Saviour was hanging on thecross, the consecrated bread would have been transubstantiated intothe same body that remained on the tree? whether in Christ's corporalpresence in the sacramental wafer, his humanity be not abstracted fromhis Godhead? whether after the resurrection we shall carnally eat anddrink as we do in this life?

There are a thousand other more sublimated and refined niceties ofnotions, relations, quantities, formalities, quiddities, haeccities, andsuch like abstrusities, as one would think no one could pry into, excepthe had not only such cat's eyes as to see best in the dark, but evensuch a piercing faculty as to see through an inch-board, and spy outwhat really never had any being. Add to these some of their tenets andopinions, which are so absurd and extravagant, that the wildest fanciesof the Stoicks which they so much disdain and decry as paradoxes, seemin comparison just and rational; as their maintaining, that it is a lessaggravating fault to kill a hundred men, than for a poor cobbler to seta stitch on the sabbath-day; or, that it is more justifiable to dothe greatest injury imaginable to others, than to tell the leastlie ourselves. And these subtleties are alchymized to a more refinedsublimate by the abstracting brains of their several schoolmen; theRealists, the Nominalists, the Thomists, the Albertists, the Occamists, the Scotists; these are not all, but the rehearsal of a few only, as aspecimen of their divided sects; in each of which there is so much ofdeep learning, so much of unfathomable difficulty, that I believe theapostles themselves would stand in need of a new illuminating spirit, ifthey were to engage in any controversy with these new divines. St. Paul, no question, had a full measure of faith; yet when he lays down faithto be the substance of things not seen, these men carp at it for animperfect definition, and would undertake to teach the apostles betterlogic. Thus the same holy author wanted for nothing of the graceof charity, yet (say they) he describes and defines it but veryinaccurately, when he treats of it in the thirteenth chapter of hisfirst epistle to the Corinthians. The primitive disciples were veryfrequent in administering the holy sacrament, breaking bread from houseto house; yet should they be asked of the _Terminus a quo_ and the_Terminus ad quern_, the nature of transubstantiation? the mannerhow one body can be in several places at the same time? the differencebetwixt the several attributes of Christ in heaven, on the cross, and inthe consecrated bread? what time is required for the transubstantiatingthe bread into flesh? how it can be done by a short sentence pronouncedby the priest, which sentence is a species of discreet quantity, thathas no permanent _punctum?_ Were they asked (I say) these, and severalother confused queries, I do not believe they could answer so readilyas our mincing school-men now-a-days take a pride to do. They were wellacquainted with the Virgin Mary, yet none of them undertook to provethat she was preserved immaculate from original sin, as some of ourdivines very hotly contend for. St. Peter had the keys given to him, andthat by our Saviour himself, who had never entrusted him except he hadknown him capable of their manage and custody; and yet it is much tobe questioned whether Peter was sensible of that subtlety broached byScotus, that he may have the key of knowledge effectually for others, who has no knowledge actually in himself. Again, they baptized allnations, and yet never taught what was the formal, material, efficient, and final cause of baptism, and certainly never dreamt of distinguishingbetween a delible and an indelible character in this sacrament Theyworshipped in the spirit, following their master's injunction, God is aspirit, and they which worship him, must worship him in spirit, andin truth; yet it does not appear that it was ever revealed to them howdivine adoration should be paid at the same time to our blessed Saviourin heaven, and to his picture here below on a wall, drawn with twofingers held out, a bald crown, and a circle round his head. Toreconcile these intricacies to an appearance of reason requiresthree-score years' experience in metaphysics. 

Farther, the apostles often mention _Grace_, yet never distinguishbetween _gratia, gratis data_, and _gratia gratificans_. They earnestlyexhort us likewise to good works, yet never explain the differencebetween _Opus operans_, and _Opus operatum_. They very frequently pressand invite us to seek after charity, without dividing it into infusedand acquired, or determining whether it be a substance or an accident, acreated or an uncreated being. They detested sin themselves, and warnedothers from the commission of it; and yet I am sure they could neverhave defined so dogmatically, as the Scotists have since done. St. Paul, who in other's judgment is no less the chief of the apostles, thanhe was in his own the chief of sinners, who being bred at the feet ofGamaliel, was certainly more eminently a scholar than any of the rest, yet he often exclaims against vain philosophy, warns us from dotingabout questions and strifes of words, and charges us to avoid profaneand vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called; whichhe would not have done, if he had thought it worth his while to havebecome acquainted with them, which he might soon have been, thedisputes of that age being but small, and more intelligible sophisms, in reference to the vastly greater intricacies they are now improvedto. But yet, however, our scholastic divines are so modest, that if theymeet with any passage in St. Paul, or any other penman of holy writ, which is not so well modelled, or critically disposed of, as theycould wish, they will not roughly condemn it, but bend it rather to afavorable interpretation, out of reverence to antiquity, and respectto the holy scriptures; though indeed it were unreasonable to expectanything of this nature from the apostles, whose lord and masterhad given unto them to know the mysteries of God, but not those ofphilosophy. If the same divines meet with anything of like natureunpalatable in St. Chrysostom, St. Basil, St. Hierom, or others of thefathers, they will not stick to appeal from their authority, and veryfairly resolve that they lay under a mistake. Yet these ancient fatherswere they who confuted both the Jews and Heathens, though they bothobstinately adhered to their respective prejudices; they confuted them(I say), yet by their lives and miracles, rather than by words andsyllogisms; and the persons they thus proselyted were downright honest, well meaning people, such as understood plain sense better than anyartificial pomp of reasoning: whereas if our divines should nowset about the gaining converts from paganism by their metaphysicalsubtleties, they would find that most of the persons they appliedthemselves to were either so ignorant as not at all to apprehend them, or so impudent as to scoff and deride them; or finally, so well skilledat the same weapons, that they would be able to keep their pass, andfence off all assaults of conviction: and this last way the victorywould be altogether as hopeless, as if two persons were engaged of soequal strength, that it were impossible any one should overpower theother. 

If my judgment might be taken, I would advise Christians, in their nextexpedition to a holy war, instead of those many unsuccessful legions, which they have hitherto sent to encounter the Turks and Saracens, that they would furnish out their clamorous Scotists, their obstinateOccamists, their invincible Albertists, and all their forces of tough, crabbed and profound disputants: the engagement, I fancy, would bemighty pleasant, and the victory we may imagine on our side not to bequestioned. For which of the enemies would not veil their turbans at sosolemn an appearance? Which of the fiercest Janizaries would notthrow away his scimitar, and all the half-moons be eclipsed by theinterposition of so glorious an army?

[Illustration: 270]

I suppose you mistrust I speak all this by way of jeer and irony; andwell I may, since among divines themselves there are some so ingeniousas to despise these captious and frivolous impertinences: they look uponit as a kind of profane sacrilege, and a little less than blasphemousimpiety, to determine of such niceties in religion, as ought ratherto be the subject of an humble and uncontradicting faith, than of ascrupulous and inquisitive reason: they abhor a defiling the mysteriesof Christianity with an intermixture of heathenish philosophy, and judgeit very improper to reduce divinity to an obscure speculative science, whose end is such a happiness as can be gained only by the means ofpractice. But alas, those notional divines, however condemned by thesoberer judgment of others, are yet mightily pleased with themselves, and are so laboriously intent upon prosecuting their crabbed studies, that they cannot afford so much time as to read a single chapter inany one book of the whole bible. And while they thus trifle away theirmis-spent hours in trash and babble, they think that they supportthe Catholic Church with the props and pillars of propositions andsyllogisms, no less effectually than Atlas is feigned by the poets tosustain on his shoulders the burden of a tottering world. 

[Illustration: Atlas with the Burden of the Tottering World 274]

Their privileges, too, and authority are very considerable: they candeal with any text of scripture as with a nose of wax, knead it intowhat shape best suits their interest; and whatever conclusions theyhave dogmatically resolved upon, they would have them as irrepealablyratified as Solon's laws, and in as great force as the very decrees ofthe papal chair. If any be so bold as to remonstrate to their decisions, they will bring him on his knees to a recantation of his impudence. They shall pronounce as irrevocably as an oracle, this proposition isscandalous, that irreverent; this has a smack of heresy, and that isbald and improper; so that it is not the being baptised into the church, the believing of the scriptures, the giving credit to St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Hierom, St. Augustin, nay, or St. Thomas Aquinas himself, thatshall make a man a Christian, except he have the joint suffrage of thesenovices in learning, -who have blessed the world no doubt with a greatmany discoveries, which had never come to light, if they had not struckthe fire of subtlety out of the flint of obscurity. These fooleries suremust be a happy employ. 

Farther, they make as many partitions and divisions in hell andpurgatory, and describe as many different sorts and degrees ofpunishment as if they were very well acquainted with the soil andsituation of those infernal regions. And to prepare a seat for theblessed above, they invent new orbs, and a stately empyrean heaven, so wide and spacious as if they had purposely contrived it, that theglorified saints might have room enough to walk, to feast, or to takeany recreation. 

With these, and a thousand more such like toys, their heads are morestuffed and swelled than Jove, when he went big of Pallas in his brain, and was forced to use the midwifery of Vulcan's axe to ease him of histeeming burden. 

[Illustration: Midwivery of Vulcan's Axe 278]

Do not wonder, therefore, that at public disputations they bind theirheads with so many caps one over another; for this is to prevent theloss of their brains, which would otherwise break out from their uneasyconfinement. It affords likewise a pleasant scene of laughter, to listento these divines in their hotly managed disputations; to see how proudthey are of talking such hard gibberish, and stammering out suchblundering distinctions, as the auditors perhaps may sometimes gape at, but seldom apprehend: and they take such a liberty in their speaking ofLatin, that they scorn to stick at the exactness of syntax or concord;pretending it is below the majesty of a divine to talk like a pedagogue, and be tied to the slavish observance of the rules of grammar. 

Finally, they take a vast pride, among other citations, to allege theauthority of their respective master, which word they bear as profounda respect to as the Jews did to their ineffable _tetragrammaton_, andtherefore they will be sure never to write it any otherwise than ingreat letters, MAGISTER NOSTER; and if any happen to invert the order ofthe words, and say, _noster magister_ instead of _magister noster_, theywill presently exclaim against him as a pestilent heretic and underminerof the catholic faith. 

[Illustration: 282]

The next to these are another sort of brainsick fools, who stylethemselves monks and of religious orders, though they assume both titlesvery unjustly: for as to the last, they have very little religion inthem; and as to the former, the etymology of the word monk implies asolitariness, or being alone; whereas they are so thick abroad thatwe cannot pass any street or alley without meeting them. Now I cannotimagine what one degree of men would be more hopelessly wretched, ifI did not stand their friend, and buoy them up in that lake of misery, which by the engagements of a holy vow they have voluntarily immergedthemselves in. But when these sort of men are so unwelcome to others, asthat the very sight of them is thought ominous, I yet make them highlyin love with themselves, and fond admirers of their own happiness. Thefirst step whereunto they esteem a profound ignorance, thinking carnalknowledge a great enemy to their spiritual welfare, and seem confidentof becoming greater proficients in divine mysteries the less they arepoisoned with any human learning. They imagine that they bear a sweetconsort with the heavenly choir, when they tone out their daily tallyof psalms, which they rehearse only by rote, without permitting theirunderstanding or affections to go along with their voice. Among thesesome make a good profitable trade of beggary, going about from house tohouse, not like the apostles, to break, but to beg, their bread; nay, thrust into all public-houses, come aboard the passage-boats, get intothe travelling waggons, and omit no opportunity of time or place for thecraving people's charity; doing a great deal of injury to common highwaybeggars by interloping in their traffic of alms. And when they are thusvoluntarily poor, destitute, not provided with two coats, nor withany money in their purse, they have the impudence to pretend that theyimitate the first disciples, whom their master expressly sent out insuch an equipage. It is pretty to observe how they regulate all theiractions as it were by weight and measure to so exact a proportion, as ifthe whole loss of their religion depended upon the omission of the leastpunctilio. Thus they must be very critical in the precise number ofknots to the tying on of their sandals; what distinct colours theirrespective habits, and what stuff made of; how broad and long theirgirdles; how big, and in what fashion, their hoods; whether their baldcrowns be to a hair's-breadth of the right cut; how many hours they mustsleep, at what minute rise to prayers, &c. And these several customs arealtered according to the humours of different persons and places. Whilethey are sworn to the superstitious observance of these trifles, they donot only despise all others, but are very inclinable to fall out amongthemselves; for though they make profession of an apostolic charity, yet they will pick a quarrel, and be implacably passionate for such poorprovocations, as the girting on a coat the wrong way, for the wearing ofclothes a little too darkish coloured, or any such nicety not worth thespeaking of. 

[Illustration: 288]

Some are so obstinately superstitious that they will wear their uppergarment of some coarse dog's hair stuff, and that next their skinas soft as silk: but others on the contrary will have linen frocksoutermost, and their shirts of wool, or hair. Some again will not toucha piece of money, though they make no scruple of the sin of drunkenness, and the lust of the flesh. All their several orders are mindful ofnothing more than of their being distinguished from each other bytheir different customs and habits. They seem indeed not so careful ofbecoming like Christ, and of being known to be his disciples, as thebeing unlike to one another, and distinguishable for followers of theirseveral founders. A great part of their religion consists in theirtitle: some will be called cordeliers, and these subdivided intocapuchines, minors, minims, and mendicants; some again are styledBenedictines, others of the order of St. Bernard, others of that ofSt. Bridget; some are Augustin monks, some Willielmites, and othersJacobists, as if the common name of Christian were too mean and vulgar. Most of them place their greatest stress for salvation on a strictconformity to their foppish ceremonies, and a belief of their legendarytraditions; wherein they fancy to have acquitted themselves with so muchof supererogation, that one heaven can never be a condign reward fortheir meritorious life; little thinking that the Judge of all the earthat the last day shall put them off, with a who hath required thesethings at your hands; and call them to account only for the stewardshipof his legacy, which was the precept of love and charity. It will bepretty to hear their pleas before the great tribunal: one will brag howhe mortified his carnal appetite by feeding only upon fish: another willurge that he spent most of his time on earth in the divine exerciseof singing psalms: a third will tell how many days he fasted, and whatsevere penance he imposed on himself for the bringing his body intosubjection: another shall produce in his own behalf as many ceremoniesas would load a fleet of merchant-men: a fifth shall plead that inthreescore years he never so much as touched a piece of money, excepthe fingered it through a thick pair of gloves: a sixth, to testify hisformer humility, shall bring along with him his sacred hood, so old andnasty, that any seaman had rather stand bare headed on the deck, thanput it on to defend his ears in the sharpest storms: the next that comesto answer for himself shall plead, that for fifty years together, he hadlived like a sponge upon the same place, and was content never to changehis homely habitation: another shall whisper softly, and tell the judgehe has lost his voice by a continual singing of holy hymns and anthems:the next shall confess how he fell into a lethargy by a strict, reserved, and sedentary life: and the last shall intimate that he hasforgot to speak, by having always kept silence, in obedience to theinjunction of taking heed lest he should have offended with his tongue. But amidst all their fine excuses our Saviour shall interrupt them withthis answer, Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, verily Iknow you not; I left you but one precept, of loving one another, whichI do not hear any one plead he has faithfully discharged: I told youplainly in my gospel, without any parable, that my father's kingdom wasprepared not for such as should lay claim to it by austerities, prayers, or fastings, but for those who should render themselves worthy of it bythe exercise of faith, and the offices of charity: I cannot own such asdepend on their own merits without a reliance on my mercy: as many ofyou therefore as trust to the broken reeds of your own deserts may evengo search out a new heaven, for you shall never enter into that, whichfrom the foundations of the world was prepared only for such as are trueof heart. When these monks and friars shall meet with such a shamefulrepulse, and see that ploughmen and mechanics are admitted into thatkingdom, from which they themselves are shut out, how sneakingly willthey look, and how pitifully slink away? Yet till this last trial theyhad more comfort of a future happiness, because more hopes of it thanany other men. And these persons are not only great in their own eyes, but highly esteemed and respected by others, especially those of theorder of mendicants, whom none dare to offer any affront to, becauseas confessors they are intrusted with all the secrets of particularintrigues, which they are bound by oath not to discover; yet many times, when they are almost drunk, they cannot keep their tongue so far withintheir head, as not to be babbling out some hints, and shewing themselvesso full, that they are in pain to be delivered. If any person give themthe least provocation they will sure to be revenged of him, and in theirnext public harangue give him such shrewd wipes and reflections, thatthe whole congregation must needs take notice at whom they are levelled;nor will they ever desist from this way of declaiming, till their mouthbe stopped with a bribe to hold their tongue. All their preaching ismere stage-playing, and their delivery the very transports of ridiculeand drollery. Good Lord! how mimical are their gestures? What heightsand falls in their voice? What toning, what bawling, what singing, whatsqueaking, what grimaces, making of mouths, apes' faces, and distortingof their countenance; and this art of oratory as a choice mystery, they convey down by tradition to one another. The manner of it I mayadventure thus farther to enlarge upon. First, in a kind of mockerythey implore the divine assistance, which they borrowed from the solemncustom of the poets: then if their text suppose be of charity, theyshall take their exordium as far off as from a description of the riverNile in Egypt; or if they are to discourse of the mystery of the Cross, they shall begin with a story of Bell and the Dragon; or perchance iftheir subject be of fasting, for an entrance to their sermon they shallpass through the twelve signs of the zodiac; or lastly, if they are topreach of faith, they shall address themselves in a long mathematicalaccount of the quadrature of the circle. I myself once heard a greatfool (a great scholar I would have said) undertaking in a laboriousdiscourse to explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity; in the unfoldingwhereof, that he might shew his wit and reading, and together satisfyitching ears, he proceeded in a new method, as by insisting on theletters, syllables, and proposition, on the concord of noun and verb, and that of noun substantive, and noun adjective; the auditors allwondered, and some mumbled to themselves that hemistitch of Horace, Why all this needless trash?

But at last he brought it thus far, that he could demonstrate thewhole Trinity to be represented by these first rudiments of grammar, as clearly and plainly as it was possible for a mathematician to draw atriangle in the sand: and for the making of this grand discovery, thissubtle divine had plodded so hard for eight months together, that hestudied himself as blind as a beetle, the intenseness of the eye of hisunderstanding overshadowing and extinguishing that of his body; and yethe did not at all repent him of his blindness, but thinks the loss ofhis sight an easy purchase for the gain of glory and credit. 

[Illustration: 294]

I heard at another time a grave divine, of fourscore years of age atleast, so sour and hard-favoured, that one would be apt to mistrust thatit was Scotus Redivivus; he taking upon him to treat of the mysteriousname, JESUS, did very subtly pretend that in the very letters wascontained, whatever could be said of it: for first, its being declinedonly with three cases, did expressly point out the trinity of persons, then that the nominative ended in S, the accusative in M, and theablative in U, did imply some unspeakable mystery, viz. , that in wordsof those initial letters Christ was the _summus_, or beginning, the_medius_, or middle, and the _ultimus_, or end of all things. There wasyet a more abstruse riddle to be explained, which was by dividing theword JESUS into two parts, and separating the S in the middle from thetwo extreme syllables, making a kind of pentameter, the word consistingof five letters: and this intermedial S being in the Hebrew alphabetcalled sin, which in the English language signifies what the Latins term_peecatum_, was urged to imply that the holy Jesus should purify usfrom all sin and wickedness. Thus did the pulpiteer cant, while all thecongregation, especially the brotherhood of divines, were so surprisedat his odd way of preaching, that wonder served them, as grief didNiobe, almost turned them into stones. I among the rest (as Horacedescribes Priapus viewing the enchantments of the two sorceresses, Canidia and Sagane) could no longer contain, but let fly a crackingreport of the operation it had upon me. These impertinent introductionsare not without reason condemned; for of old, whenever Demosthenes amongthe Greeks, or Tully among the Latins, began their orations with sogreat a digression from the matter in hand, it was always looked uponas improper and unelegant, and indeed, were such a long-fetched exordiumany token of a good invention, shepherds and ploughmen might lay claimto the title of men of greatest parts, since upon any argument it iseasiest for them to talk what is least to the purpose. These preachersthink their preamble (as we may well term it), to be the mostfashionable, when it is farthest from the subject they propose to treatof, while each auditor sits and wonders what they drive at, and manytimes mutters out the complaint of Virgil:--

_Whither does all this jargon tend?_ In the third place, when they cometo the division of their text, they shall give only a very short touchat the interpretation of the words, when the fuller explication of theirsense ought to have been their only province. Fourthly, after they area little entered, they shall start some theological queries, far enoughoff from the matter in hand, and bandy it about pro and con till theylose it in the heat of scuffle. And here they shall cite their doctorsinvincible, subtle, seraphic, cherubic, holy, irrefragable, and suchlike great names to confirm their several assertions. Then out theybring their syllogisms, their majors, their minors, conclusions, corollaries, suppositions, and distinctions, that will soonerterrify the congregation into an amazement, than persuade them intoa conviction. Now comes the fifth act, in which they must exert theirutmost skill to come off with applause. Here therefore they fall atelling some sad lamentable story out of their legend, or someother fabulous history, and this they descant upon allegorically, tropologically, and analogically; and so they draw to a conclusion oftheir discourse, which is a more brain-sick chimera than ever Horacecould describe in his _De Arte Poetica_, when he began:--

_Humano Capitis &c_. Their praying is altogether as ridiculous as theirpreaching; for imagining that in their addresses to heaven they shouldset out in a low and tremulous voice, as a token of dread and reverence, they begin therefore with such a soft whispering as if they were afraidany one should overhear what they said; but when they are gone a littleway, they clear up their pipes by degrees, and at last bawl out so loudas if, with Baal's priests, they were resolved to awake a sleeping god;and then again, being told by rhetoricians that heights and falls, and adifferent cadency in pronunciation, is a great advantage to the settingoff any thing that is spoken, they will sometimes as it were muttertheir words inwardly, and then of a sudden hollo them out, and be sureat last, in such a flat, faltering tone as if their spirits were spent, and they had run themselves out of breath. Lastly, they have readthat most systems of rhetoric treat of the art of exciting laughter;therefore for the effecting of this they will sprinkle some jests andpuns that must pass for ingenuity, though they are only the froth andfolly of affectedness. Sometimes they will nibble at the wit of beingsatyrical, though their utmost spleen is so toothless, that they suckrather than bite, tickle rather than scratch or wound: nor do they everflatter more than at such times as they pretend to speak with greatestfreedom. 

Finally, all their actions are so buffoonish and mimical, that anywould judge they had learned all their tricks of mountebanks andstage-players, who in action it is true may perhaps outdo them, butin oratory there is so little odds between both, that it is hard todetermine which seems of longest standing in the schools of eloquence. 

Yet these preachers, however ridiculous, meet with such hearers, whoadmire them as much as the people of Athens did Demosthenes, or thecitizens of Rome could do Cicero: among which admirers are chieflyshopkeepers, and women, whose approbation and good opinion they onlycourt; because the first, if they are humoured, give them some snacksout of unjust gain; and the last come and ease their grief to them uponall pinching occasions, especially when their husbands are any wayscross or unkind. 

Thus much I suppose may suffice to make you sensible how much thesecell-hermits and recluses are indebted to my bounty; who when theytyrannize over the consciences of the deluded laity with fopperies, juggles, and impostures, yet think themselves as eminently pious as St. Paul, St. Anthony, or any other of the saints; but these stage-divines, not less ungrateful dis-owners of their obligations to folly, than theyare impudent pretenders to the profession of piety, I willingly take myleave of, and pass now to kings, princes, and courtiers, who paying mea devout acknowledgment, may justly challenge back the respect of beingmentioned and taken notice of by me. And first, had they wisdom enoughto make a true judgment of things, they would find their own conditionto be more despicable and slavish than that of the most menial subjects. For certainly none can esteem perjury or parricide a cheap purchasefor a crown, if he does but seriously reflect on that weight of cares aprincely diadem is loaded with. He that sits at the helm of governmentacts in a public capacity, and so must sacrifice all private interestto the attainment of the common good; he must himself be conformable tothose laws his prerogative exacts, or else he can expect no obediencepaid them from others; he must have a strict eye over all his inferiormagistrates and officers, or otherwise it is to be doubted they will butcarelessly discharge their respective duties. Every king, within his ownterritories, is placed for a shining example as it were in the firmamentof his wide-spread dominions, to prove either a glorious star of benigninfluence, if his behaviour be remarkably just and innocent, or elseto impend as a threatening comet, if his blazing power be pestilent andhurtful. Subjects move in a darker sphere, and so their wanderings andfailings are less discernible; whereas princes, being fixed in a moreexalted orb, and encompassed with a brighter dazzling lustre, theirspots are more apparently visible, and their eclipses, or other defects, influential on all that is inferior to them. Kings are baited with somany temptations and opportunities to vice and immorality, such as arehigh feeding, liberty, flattery, luxury, and the like, that they muststand perpetually on their guard, to fence off those assaults that arealways ready to be made upon them. In fine, abating from treachery, hatred, dangers, fear, and a thousand other mischiefs impending oncrowned heads, however uncontrollable they are this side heaven, yetafter their reign here they must appear before a supremer judge, andthere be called to an exact account for the discharge of that greatstewardship which was committed to their trust If princes did butseriously consider (and consider they would if they were but wise) thesemany hardships of a royal life, they would be so perplexed in the resultof their thoughts thereupon, as scarce to eat or sleep in quiet But nowby my assistance they leave all these cares to the gods, and mind onlytheir own ease and pleasure, and therefore will admit none to theirattendance but who will divert them with sport and mirth, lest theyshould otherwise be seized and damped with the surprisal of soberthoughts. They think they have sufficiently acquitted themselves in theduty of governing, if they do but ride constantly a hunting, breed upgood race-horses, sell places and offices to those of the courtiers thatwill give most for them, and find out new ways for invading of theirpeople's property, and hooking in a larger revenue to their ownexchequer; for the procurement whereof they will always have somepretended claim and title; that though it be manifest extortion, yetit may bear the show of law and justice: and then they daub over theiroppression with a submissive, flattering carriage, that they may so farinsinuate into the affections of the vulgar, as they may not tumult norrebel, but patiently crouch to burdens and exactions. Let us feign now aperson ignorant of the laws and constitutions of that realm he lives in, an enemy to the public good, studious only for his own private interest, addicted wholly to pleasures and delights, a hater of learning, aprofessed enemy to liberty and truth, careless and unmindful of thecommon concerns, taking all the measures of justice and honesty fromthe false beam of self-interest and advantage, after this hang about hisneck a gold chain, for an intimation that he ought to have all virtueslinked together; then set a crown of gold and jewels on his head, fora token that he ought to overtop and outshine others in all commendablequalifications; next, put into his hand a royal sceptre for a symbolof justice and integrity; lastly, clothe him with purple, for anhieroglyphic of a tender love and affection to the commonwealth. If aprince should look upon this portraiture, and draw a comparison betweenthat and himself, certainly he would be ashamed of his ensigns ofmajesty, and be afraid of being laughed out of them. 

[Illustration: His Majesty 302]

Next to kings themselves may come their courtiers, who, though theyare for the most part a base, servile, cringing, low-spirited sort offlatterers, yet they look big, swell great, and have high thoughts oftheir honour and grandeur. Their confidence appears upon all occasions;yet in this one thing they are very modest, in that they are content toadorn their bodies with gold, jewels, purple, and other glorious ensignsof virtue and wisdom, but leave their minds empty and unfraught; andtaking the resemblance of goodness to themselves, turn over the truthand reality of it to others. They think themselves mighty happy in thatthey can call the king master, and be allowed the familiarity of talkingwith him; that they can volubly rehearse his several tides of augusthighness, supereminent excellence, and most serene majesty, that theycan boldly usher in any discourse, and that they have the complete knackof insinuation and flattery; for these are the arts that make them trulygenteel and noble. If you make a stricter enquiry after their otherendowments, you shall find them mere sots and dolts. They will sleepgenerally till noon, and then their mercenary chaplains shall come totheir bed-side, and entertain them perhaps with a short morning prayer. As soon as they are drest they must go to breakfast, and when thatis done, immediately to dinner. When the cloth is taken away, then tocards, dice, tables, or some such like diversion. After this they musthave one or two afternoon banquets, and so in the evening to supper. When they have supped then begins the game of drinking; the bottles aremarshalled, the glasses ranked, and round go the healths and bumperstill they are carried to bed. And this is the constant method of passingaway their hours, days, months, years, and ages. I have many times tookgreat satisfaction by standing in the court, and seeing how the tawdrybutterflies vie upon one another: the ladies shall measure the height oftheir humours by the length of their trails, which must be borne up by apage behind. The nobles justle one another to get nearest to the king'selbow, and wear gold chains of that weight and bigness as require noless strength to carry than they do wealth to purchase. 

And now for some reflections upon popes, cardinals, and bishops, who inpomp and splendour have almost equalled if not outgone secular princes. Now if any one consider that their upper crotchet of white linen is tosignify their unspotted purity and innocence; that their forked mitres, with both divisions tied together by the same knot, are to denote thejoint knowledge of the Old and New Testament; that their always wearinggloves, represents their keeping their hands clean and undented fromlucre and covetousness; that the pastoral staff implies the care ofa flock committed to their charge; that the cross carried before themexpresses their victory over all carnal affections; he (I say) thatconsiders this, and much more of the like nature, must needs concludethey are entrusted with a very weighty and difficult office. But alas, they think it sufficient if they can but feed themselves; and as totheir flock, either commend them to the care of Christ himself, orcommit them to the guidance of some inferior vicars and curates; not somuch as remembering what their name of bishop imports, to wit, labour, pains, and diligence, but by base simoniacal contracts, they are in aprofane sense _Episcopi, i. E_. , overseers of their own gain and income. 

[Illustration: 312]

[Illustration: 316]

So cardinals, in like manner, if they did but consider that the churchsupposes them to succeed in the room of the apostles; that thereforethey must behave themselves as their predecessors, and so not be lords, but dispensers of spiritual gifts, of the disposal whereof they must oneday render a strict account: or if they would but reflect a little ontheir habit, and thus reason with themselves, what means this whiteupper garment, but only an unspotted innocence? What signifies myinner purple, but only an ardent love and zeal to God? What imports myoutermost pall, so wide and long that it covers the whole mule when Iride, nay, should be big enough to cover a camel, but only a diffusivecharity, that should spread itself for a succour and protection to all, by teaching, exhorting, comforting, reproving, admonishing, composing ofdifferences, courageously withstanding wicked princes, and sacrificingfor the safety of our flock our life and blood, as well as our wealthand riches; though indeed riches ought not to be at all possessed bysuch as boast themselves successors to the apostles, who were poor, needy, and destitute: I say, if they did but lay these considerations toheart they would never be so ambitious of being created to this honour, they would willingly resign it when conferred upon them, or at leastwould be as industrious, watchful and laborious, as the primitiveapostles were. Now as to the popes of Rome, who pretend themselvesChrist's vicars, if they would but imitate his exemplary life, in thebeing employed in an unintermitted course of preaching; in the beingattended with poverty, nakedness, hunger, and a contempt of this world;if they did but consider the import of the word pope, which signifiesa father; or if they did but practice their surname of most holy, whatorder or degrees of men would be in a worse condition? There would bethen no such vigorous making of parties, and buying of votes, in theconclave upon a vacancy of that see: and those who by bribery, or otherindirect courses, should get themselves elected, would never securetheir sitting firm in the chair by pistol, poison, force, and violence. How much of their pleasure would be abated if they were but endowed withone dram of wisdom? Wisdom, did I say? Nay, with one grain of that saltwhich our Saviour bid them not lose the savour of. All their riches, all their honour, their jurisdictions, their Peter's patrimony, theiroffices, their dispensations, their licences, their indulgences, theirlong train and attendants (see in how short a compass I have abbreviatedall their marketing of religion); in a word, all their perquisiteswould be forfeited and lost; and in their room would succeed watchings, fastings, tears, prayers, sermons, hard studies, repenting sighs, and athousand such like severe penalties: nay, what's yet more deplorable, it would then follow, that all their clerks, amanuenses, notaries, advocates, proctors, secretaries, the offices of grooms, ostlers, serving-men, pimps (and somewhat else, which for modesty's sake I shallnot mention); in short, all these troops of attendants, which depend onhis holiness, would all lose their several employments. 

[Illustration: The Pope 320]

This indeed would be hard, but what yet remains would be more dreadful:the very Head of the Church, the spiritual prince, would then be broughtfrom all his splendour to the poor equipage of a scrip and staff. But all this is upon the supposition only that they understood whatcircumstances they are placed in; whereas now, by a wholesome neglectof thinking, they live as well as heart can wish: whatever of toil anddrudgery belongs to their office that they assign over to St. Peter, orSt. Paul, who have time enough to mind it; but if there be any thing ofpleasure and grandeur, that they assume to themselves, as being hereuntocalled: so that by my influence no sort of people live more to theirown ease and content. They think to satisfy that Master they pretend toserve, our Lord and Saviour, with their great state and magnificence, with the ceremonies of instalments, with the tides of reverence andholiness, and with exercising their episcopal function only in blessingand cursing. The working of miracles is old and out-dated; to teachthe people is too laborious; to interpret scripture is to invade theprerogative of the schoolmen; to pray is too idle; to shed tears iscowardly and unmanly; to fast is too mean and sordid; to be easy andfamiliar is beneath the grandeur of him, who, without being sued toand intreated, will scarce give princes the honour of kissing his toe;finally, to die for religion is too self-denying; and to be crucified astheir Lord of Life, is base and ignominious. Their only weapons ought tobe those of the Spirit; and of these indeed they are mighty liberal, as of their interdicts, their suspensions, their denunciations, theiraggravations, their greater and lesser excommunications, and theirroaring bulls, that fright whomever they are thundered against; andthese most holy fathers never issue them out more frequently thanagainst those, who, at the instigation of the devil, and not having thefear of God before their eyes, do feloniously and maliciously attempt tolessen and impair St. Peter's patrimony: and though that apostle tellsour Saviour in the gospel, in the name of all the other disciples, wehave left all, and followed you, yet they challenge as his inheritance, fields, towns, treasures, and large dominions; for the defendingwhereof, inflamed with a holy zeal, they fight with fire and sword, to the great loss and effusion of Christian blood, thinking they areapostolical maintainers of Christ's spouse, the church, when they havemurdered all such as they call her enemies; though indeed the church hasno enemies more bloody and tyrannical than such impious popes, who givedispensations for the not preaching of Christ; evacuate the main effectand design of our redemption by their pecuniary bribes and sales;adulterate the gospel by their forced interpretations, and underminingtraditions; and lastly, by their lusts and wickedness grieve the HolySpirit, and make their Saviour's wounds to bleed anew. 

[Illustration: 324]

Farther, when the Christian church has been all along first planted, then confirmed, and since established by the blood of her martyrs, as ifChrist her head would be wanting in the same methods still of protectingher, they invert the order, and propagate their religion now by armsand violence, which was wont formerly to be done only with patienceand sufferings. And though war be so brutish, as that it becomes beastsrather than men; so extravagant, that the poets feigned it an effect ofthe furies; so licentious, that it stops the course of all justice andhonesty, so desperate, that it is best waged by ruffians and banditti, and so unchristian, that it is contrary to the express commands of thegospel; yet maugre all this, peace is too quiet, too inactive, and theymust be engaged in the boisterousness of war. Among which undertakingpopes, you shall have some so old that they can scarce creep, and yetthey will put on a young, brisk resolution, will resolve to stick atno pains, to spare no cost, nor to waive any inconvenience, so they mayinvolve laws, religion, peace, and all other concerns, whether sacred orcivil, in unappeasable tumults and distractions. And yet some of theirlearned fawning courtiers will interpret this notorious madness forzeal, and piety, and fortitude, having found out the way how a man maydraw his sword, and sheathe it in his brother's bowels, and yet notoffend against the duty of the second table, whereby we are obligedto love our neighbours as ourselves. It is yet uncertain whether theseRomish fathers have taken example from, or given precedent to, suchother German bishops, who omitting their ecclesiastical habit, and otherceremonies, appear openly armed cap-a-pie, like so many champions andwarriors, thinking no doubt that they come short of the duty of theirfunction, if they die in any other place than the open field, fightingthe battles of the Lord. The inferior clergy, deeming it unmannerly notto conform to their patrons and diocesans, devoutly tug and fight fortheir tithes with syllogisms and arguments, as fiercely as with swords, sticks, stones, or anything that came next to hand. When they read therabbies, fathers, or other ancient writings, how quick-sighted are theyin spying out any sentences, that they may frighten the people with, andmake them believe that more than the tenth is due, passing by whateverthey meet with in the same authors that minds them of the duty anddifficulty of their own office. They never consider that their shavencrown is a token that they should pare off and cut away all thesuperfluous lusts of this world, and give themselves wholly to divinemeditation; but instead of this, our bald-pated priests think they havedone enough, if they do but mumble over such a fardel of prayers; whichit is a wonder if God should hear or understand, when they whisper themso softly, and in so unknown a language, which they can scarce hear orunderstand themselves. This they have in common with other mechanics, that they are most subtle in the craft of getting money, and wonderfullyskilled in their respective dues of tithes, offerings, perquisites, &c. Thus they are all content to reap the profit, but as to the burden, thatthey toss as a ball from one hand to another, and assign it over toany they can get or hire: for as secular princes have their judges andsubordinate ministers to act in their name, and supply their stead; soecclesiastical governors have their deputies, vicars, and curates, nay, many times turn over the whole care of religion to the laity. The laity, supposing they have nothing to do with the church (as if their baptismalvow did not initiate them members of it), make it over to the priests;of the priests again, those that are secular, thinking their titheimplies them to be a little too profane, assign this task over to theregulars, the regulars to the monks, the monks bandy it from one orderto another, till it light upon the mendicants; they lay it upon theCarthusians, which order alone keeps honesty and piety among them, butreally keep them so close that no body ever yet could see them. Thus thePopes thrusting only their sickle into the harvest of profit, leave allthe other toil of spiritual husbandry to the bishops, the bishops bestowit upon the pastors, the pastors on their curates, and the curatescommit it to the mendicants, who return it again to such as well knowhow to make good advantage of the flock, by the benefit of their fleece. 

[Illustration: 329]

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But I would not be thought purposely to expose the weaknesses of popesand priests, lest I should seem to recede from my title, and make asatire instead of a panegyric: nor let anyone imagine that I reflect ongood princes, by commending of bad ones: I did this only in brief, toshew that there is no one particular person can lead a comfortable life, except he be entered of my society, and retain me for his friend. Norindeed can it be otherwise, since fortune, that empress of the world, isso much in league and amity with me, that to wise men she is alwaysstingy, and sparing of her gifts, but is profusely liberal and lavish tofools. Thus Timotheus, the Athenian commander, in all his expeditions, was a mirror of good luck, because he was a little underwitted; from himwas occasioned the Grecian proverb, 'H _evdovtos kvptos aipel_, _The netfills, though the fisherman sleeps_; there is also another favourableproverb, _yhavf itttatai_, _The owl flies_ an omen of success. Butagainst wise men are pointed these ill-aboding proverbs, '_Ev tetpadi. Yewnoevtas, Born under a bad planet_; equum habet seianum, _He cannotride the fore-horse_; aurum tholosanum, _Ill-gotten goods will neverprosper_; and more to the same purpose. But I forbear from any fartherproverbializing, lest I should be thought to have rifled my Erasmus'sadages. To return, therefore, fortune we find still favouring the blunt, and flushing the forward; strokes and smoothes up fools, crowning alltheir undertakings with success; but wisdom makes her followers bashful, sneaking, and timorous, and therefore you see that they are commonlyreduced to hard shifts, must grapple with poverty, cold and hunger, mustlie recluse, despised, and unregarded, while fools roll in money, areadvanced to dignities and offices, and in a word, have the whole worldat command. If any one think it happy to be a favourite at court, and tomanage the disposal of places and preferments, alas, this happiness isso far from being attainable by wisdom, that the very suspicion of itwould put a stop to all advancement Has any man a mind to raise himselfa good estate? Alas what dealer in the world would ever get a farthing, if he be so wise as to scruple at perjury, blush at a lie, or stick atany fraud and over-reaching. 

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Farther, does any one appear a candidate for any ecclesiastical dignity?Why, an ass, or a plough-jobber, shall sooner gain it than a wise man. Again, are you in love with any handsome lady? Alas, women-kind are soaddicted to folly, that they will not at all listen to the courtship ofa wise suitor. Finally, wherever there is any preparation made for mirthand jollity, all wise men are sure to be excluded the company, lest theyshould stint the joy, and damp the frolic In a word, to what side soeverwe turn ourselves, to popes, princes, judges, magistrates, friends, enemies, rich or poor, all their concerns are managed by money, whichbecause it is undervalued by wise men, therefore, in revenge to be sure, it never comes at them. 

But now, though my praise and commendation might well be endless, yet itis requisite I should put some period to my speech. I'll thereforedraw toward an end, when I have first confirmed what I have said bythe authority of several authors. Which by way of farther proof I shallinsist upon, partly, that I may not be thought to have said more in myown behalf than what will be justified by others; and partly, that thelawyers may not check me for citing no precedents nor allegations. Toimitate them therefore I will produce some reports and authorities, though perhaps like theirs too, they are nothing to the purpose. 

First then, it is confessed almost to a proverb, that the art ofdissembling is a very necessary accomplishment; and therefore it is acommon verse among school-boys:--

 To feign the fool when fit occasions rise, Argues the being more completely wise. 

It is easy therefore to collect how great a value ought to be put uponreal folly, when the very shadow, and bare imitation of it, is so muchesteemed. Horace, who in his episdes thus styles himself:--

 My sleek-skinn'd corpse as smooth as if I lie 'Mong th' fatted swine of Epicurus's sty. 

This poet (I say) gives this advice in one of his odes:--

 Short Folly with your counsels mix. 

[Illustration: Short 340]

The epithet of short, it is true, is a little improper. The same poetagain has this passage elsewhere:--

 Well-timed Folly has a sweet relish. 

And in another place:--

 I'd rather much be censured for a fool, Than feel the lash and smart of wisdom' s school. 

Homer praises Telemachus as much as any one of his heroes, and yet hegives him the epithet of Nuttios, _Silly_: and the Grecians generallyuse the same word to express children, as a token of their innocence. And what is the argument of all Homer's Iliads, but only, as Horaceobserves:--

 They kings and subjects dotages contain?

How positive also is Tully's commendation that all places are filledwith fools? Now every excellence being to be measured by its extent, thegoodness of folly must be of as large compass as those universal placesshe reaches to. But perhaps christians may slight the authority of aheathen. I could therefore, if I pleased, back and confirm the truthhereof by the citations of several texts of scripture; though herein. It were perhaps my duty to beg leave of the divines, that I might so farintrench upon their prerogative. Supposing a grant, the task seems sodifficult as to require the invocation of some aid and assistance; yetbecause it is unreasonable to put the muses to the trouble and expenseof so tedious a journey, especially since the business is out oftheir sphere, I shall choose rather (while I am acting the divine, andventuring in their polemic difficulties), to wish myself for such timeanimated with Scotus, his bristling and prickly soul, which I would notcare how afterwards it returned to his body, though for refinement itwere stopped at a purgatory by the way. I cannot but wish that I mightwholly change my character, or at least that some grave divine, inmy stead, might rehearse this part of the subject for me; for truly Isuspect that somebody will accuse me of plundering the closets of thosereverend men, while I pretend to so much divinity, as must appear in myfollowing discourse. Yet however, it may not seem strange, that afterso long and frequent a converse, I have gleaned some scraps from thedivines; since Horace's wooden god by hearing his master read Homer, learned some words of Greek; and Lucian's cock, by long attention, couldreadily understand what any man spoke. But now to the purpose, wishingmyself success. 

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Ecclesiastes doth somewhere confess that there are an infinite number offools. Now when he speaks of an infinite number, what does he else butimply, that herein is included the whole race of mankind, except somevery few, which I know not whether ever any one had yet the happiness tosee?

The prophet Jeremiah speaks yet more plainly in his tenth chapter, wherehe saith, that _Every man is brutish in his knowledge_. He just beforeattributes wisdom to God alone, saying, that the _Wise men of thenations are altogether brutish and foolish_. And in the precedingchapter he gives this seasonable caution, _Let not the wise man gloryin his wisdom_: the reason is obvious, because no man hath truly anywhereof to glory. But to return to Ecclesiastes, when he saith, _Vanityof vanities, all is vanity_, what else can we imagine his meaning tobe, than that our whole life is nothing but one continued interlude ofFolly? This confirms that assertion of Tully, which is delivered in thatnoted passage we but just now mentioned, namely, that _All places swarmwith fools_. Farther, what does the son of Sirach mean when he saith inEcclesiasticus, that the _Fool is changed as the moon_, while the_Wise man is fixed as the sun_, than only to hint out the folly of allmankind; and that the name of wise is due to no other but the all-wiseGod? for all interpreters by Moon understand mankind, and by Sun thatfountain of all light, the Almighty. The same sense is implied in thatsaying of our Saviour in the gospel, _There is none good but one, thatis God_: for if whoever is not wise must be consequently a fool, and if, according to the Stoics, every man be wise so far only as he is good, the meaning of the text must be, all mortals are unavoidably fools; andthere is none wise but one, that is God. Solomon also in the fifteenthchapter of his proverbs hath this expression, _Folly is joy to himthat is destitute of wisdom_; plainly intimating, that the wise man isattended with grief and vexation, while the foolish only roll in delightand pleasure. To the same purpose is that saying of his in the firstchapter of Ecclesiastes, _In much wisdom is much grief; and he thatincreaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow_. Again, it is confessed by thesame preacher in the seventh chapter of the same book, _That the heartof the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is inthe house of mirth_. This author himself had never attained to such aportion of wisdom, if he had not applied himself to a searching out thefrailties and infirmities of human nature; as, if you believe not me, may appear from his own words in his first chapter, _I gave my heart toknow wisdom, and to know madness and folly_; where it is worthy to beobserved that as to the order of words, Folly for its advantage isput in the last place. Thus Ecclesiastes wrote, and thus indeed did anecclesiastical method require; namely, that what has the precedence indignity should come hindmost in rank and order, according to the tenorof that evangelical precept, _The last shall be first, and the firstshall be last_. And in Ecclesiasticus likewise (whoever was author ofthe holy book which bears that name) in the forty-fourth chapter, theexcellency of folly above wisdom is positively acknowledged; the verywords I shall not cite, till I have the advantage of an answer to aquestion I am proposing, this way of interrogating being frequently madeuse of by Plato in his dialogues between Socrates, and other disputants:I ask you then, what is it we usually hoard and lock up, things ofgreater esteem and value, or those which are more common, trite, anddespicable? Why are you so backward in making an answer? Since you areso shy and reserved, I'll take the Greek proverb for a satisfactoryreply; namely, _Foul water is thrown down the sink_; which saying, thatno person may slight it, may be convenient to advertise that it comesfrom no meaner an author than that oracle of truth, Aristotle himself. And indeed there is no one on this side Bedlam so mad as to throw outupon the dunghill his gold and jewels, but rather all persons have aclose repository to preserve them in, and secure them under all thelocks, bolts, and bars, that either art can contrive, or fears suggest:whereas the dirt, pebbles, and oyster-shells, that lie scattered in thestreets, ye trample upon, pass by, and take no notice of. 

[Illustration: 348]

If then what is more valuable be coffered up, and what less so liesunregarded, it follows, that accordingly Folly should meet with agreater esteem than wisdom, because that wise author advises us to thekeeping close and concealing the first, and exposing or laying open theother: as take him now in his own words, _Better is he that hideth hisfolly than him that hideth his wisdom_. Beside, the sacred text does oftascribe innocence and sincerity to fools, while the wise man is apt tobe a haughty scorner of all such as he thinks or censures to have lesswit than himself: for so I understand that passage in the tenth chapterof Ecclesiastes, _When he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdomfaileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool. _ Now whatgreater argument of candour or ingenuity can there be, than to demeanhimself equal with all others, and not think their deserts any wayinferior to his own. Folly is no such scandalous attribute, but thatthe wise Agur was not ashamed to confess it, in the thirtieth chapterof Proverbs: _Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not theunderstanding of a man_, Nay, St. Paul himself, that great doctor of theGentiles, writing to his Corinthians, readily owns the name, saying, _Ifany man speak as a fool, I am more_; as if to have been less so hadbeen a reproach and disgrace. But perhaps I may be censured formisinterpreting this text by some modern annotators, who like crowspecking at one another's eyes, find fault, and correct all that wentbefore them, pretend each their own glosses to contain the only true andgenuine explication; among whom my Erasmus (whom I cannot but mentionwith respect) may challenge the second place, if not the precedency. This citation (say they) is purely impertinent; the meaning of theapostle is far different from what you dream of: he would not have thesewords so understood, as if he desired to be thought a greater foolthan the rest, but only when he had before said, _Are they ministers ofChrist? so am I_: as if the equalling himself herein to others had beentoo little, he adds, _I am more_, thinking a bare equality not enough, unless he were even superior to those he compares himself with. Thishe would have to be believed as true; yet lest it might be thoughtoffensive, as bordering too much on arrogance and conceit, he tempersand alleviates it by the covert of Folly. _I speak_ (says he) _as afool_, knowing it to be the peculiar privilege of fools to speak thetruth, without giving offence. But what St. Paul's thoughts were when hewrote this, I leave for them to determine. In my own judgment at leastI prefer the opinion of the good old tun-bellied divines, with whomit's safer and more creditable to err, than to be in the right withsmattering, raw, novices. 

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Nor indeed should any one mind the late critics any more than thesenseless chattering of a daw: especially since one of the most eminentof them (whose name I advisedly conceal, lest some of our wits shouldbe taunting him with the Greek proverb, magisterially and dogmaticallydescanting upon his text [_are they the ministers of Christ?_ ]) I speakas a fool. I am more makes a distinct chapter, and (which without goodstore of logic he could never have done) adds a new section, and thengives this paraphrase, which I shall verbatim recite, that you may havehis words materially, as well as formally his sense (for that's oneof their babbling distinctions). [_I speak as a fool_] that is, if theequalling myself to those false apostles would have been construed asthe vaunt of a fool, I will willingly be accounted a greater fool, bytaking place of them, and openly pleading, that as to their ministry, Inot only come up even with them, but outstrip and go beyond them: thoughthis same commentator a little after, as it were forgetting what he hadjust before delivered, tacks about and shifts to another interpretation. 

But why do I insist upon any one particular example, when in generalit is the public charter of all divines, to mould and bend the sacredoracles till they comply with their own fancy, spreading them (as Heavenby its Creator) like a curtain, closing together, or drawing them back, as they please? Thus indeed St. Paul himself minces and mangles somecitations he makes use of, and seems to wrest them to a different sensefrom what they were first intended for, as is confessed by the greatlinguist, St. Hierom. 

Thus when that apostle saw at Athens the inscription of an altar, hedraws from it an argument for the proof of the christian religion; butleaving out great part of the sentence, which perhaps if fully recitedmight have prejudiced his cause, he mentions only the two last wordsviz. , _To the unknown God_; and this too not without alteration, for thewhole inscription runs thus: _To the Gods of Asia, Europe, and Africa, to all foreign and unknown Gods_. 

[Illustration: 360]

'Tis an imitation of the same pattern, I will warrant you, that ouryoung divines, by leaving out four or five words in a place, and puttinga false construction on the rest, can make any passage serviceable totheir own purpose; though from the coherence of what went before, orfollows after, the genuine meaning appears to be either wide enough, orperhaps quite contradictory to what they would thrust and impose uponit. In which knack the divines are grown now so expert, that the lawyersthemselves begin to be jealous of an encroachment upon what was formerlytheir sole privilege and practice. And indeed what can they despair ofproving, since the fore-mentioned commentator (I had almost blunderedout his name), but that I am restrained by fear of the same Greekproverbial sarcasm) did upon a text of St. Luke put an interpretation, no more agreeable to the meaning of the place, than one contrary qualityis to another? The passage is this, when Judas's treachery was preparingto be executed, and accordingly it seemed requisite that all thedisciples should be provided to guard and secure their assaulted master, our Saviour, that he might piously caution them against reliance forhis delivery on any worldly strength, asks them, whether in all theirembassy they lacked anything, when he had sent them out so unfurnishedfor the performance of a long journey, that they had not so much asshoes to defend their feet from the injuries of flints and thorns, ora scrip to carry a meal's meat in; and when they had answered that theylacked nothing, he adds, _But now he that hath a purse let him takeit, and likewise a scrip; and he that hath no sword let him sell hisgarment, and buy one_. Now when the whole doctrine of our Saviourinculcates nothing more frequently than meekness, patience, and acontempt of this world, is it not plain what the meaning of the placeis? Namely, that he might now dismiss his ambassadors in a more naked, defenceless condition, he does not only advise them to take no thoughtfor shoes or scrip, but even commands them to part with the very clothesfrom their back, that so they might have the less incumbrance andentanglement in the going through their office and function. He cautionsthem, it is true, to. Be furnished with a sword, yet not such a carnalone as rogues and highwaymen make use of for murder and bloodshed, but with the sword of the Spirit, which pierces through the heart, andsearches out the innermost retirements of the soul, lopping off all ourlust, and corrupt affections, and leaving nothing in possession of ourbreast but piety, zeal, and devotion: this (I say) in my opinion is themost natural interpretation. 

[Illustration: 364]

But see how that divine misunderstands the place; by sword (says he)is meant, defence against persecution; by scrip, or purse, a sufficientquantity of provision; as if Christ had, by considering better of it, changed his mind in reference to that mean equipage, which he had beforesent his disciples in, and therefore came now to a recantation of whathe had formerly instituted: or as if he had forgot what in time past hehad told them, _Blessed are you when men shall revile you, and persecuteyou, and say all manner of evil against you for my sake. Render not evilfor evil, for blessed are the meek_, not the cruel: as if he had forgotthat he encouraged them by the examples of sparrows and lilies to takeno thought for the morrow; he gives them now another lesson, and chargesthem, rather than go _without a sword, to sell their garment, andbuy one_; as if the going cold and naked were more excusable thanthe marching unarmed. And as this author thinks all means which arerequisite for the prevention or retaliation of injuries to be impliedunder the name of sword, so under that of scrip, he would haveeverything to be comprehended, which either the necessity or conveniencyof life requires. 

Thus does this provident commentator furnish out the disciples withhalberts, spears, and guns, for the enterprise of preaching Christcrucified; he supplies them at the same time with pockets, bags, andportmanteaus, that they might carry their cupboards as well as theirbellies always about them: he takes no notice how our Saviour afterwardsrebukes Peter for drawing that sword which he had just before sostrictly charged him to buy; nor that it is ever recorded that theprimitive Christians did by no ways withstand their heathen persecutorsotherwise than with tears and prayers, which they would have exchangedmore effectually for swords and bucklers, if they had thought this textwould have borne them out. 

There is another, and he of no mean credit, whom for respect to hisperson I shall forbear to name, who commenting upon that verse in theprophet Habakkuk (_I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, and thecurtains of the land of Midian did tremble_), because tents weresometimes made of skins, he pretended that the word tents did heresignify the skin of St. Bartholomew, who was flayed for a martyr. 

I myself was lately at a divinity disputation (where I very often pay myattendance), where one of the opponents demanded a reason why it shouldbe thought more proper to silence all heretics by sword and faggot, rather than convert them by moderate and sober arguments? A certaincynical old blade, who bore the character of a divine, legible in thefrowns and wrinkles of his face, not without a great deal of disdainanswered, that it was the express injunction of St. Paul himself, inthose directions to Titus (_A man that is an heretic, after the firstand second admonition, reject_), quoting it in Latin, where the word_reject_ is _devita_, while all the auditory wondered at this citation, and deemed it no way applicable to his purpose; he at last explainedhimself, saying, that _devita_ signified _de vita tollendum hereticum_, a heretic must be slain. Some smiled at his ignorance, but othersapproved of it as an orthodox comment And however some disliked thatsuch violence should be done to so easy a text, our hair-splitting andirrefragable doctor went on in triumph. To prove it yet (says he) moreundeniably, it is commanded in the old law [_Thou shalt not suffer awitch to live_]: now then every _Maleficus_, or witch, is to be killed, but an heretic is _Maleficus_, which in the Latin translation is put fora witch, _ergo, &c_. All that were present wondered at the ingenuity ofthe person, and very devoudy embraced his opinion, never dreaming thatthe law was restrained only to magicians, sorcerers, and enchanters:for otherwise, if the word _Maleficus_ signified what it most naturallyimplies, every evil-doer, then drunkenness and whoredom were to meetwith the same capital punishment as witchcraft But why should I squanderaway my time in a too tedious prosecution of this topic, which if droveon to the utmost would afford talk to eternity? I aim herein at no morethan this, namely, that since those grave doctors take such a swingingrange and latitude, I, who am but a smattering novice in divinity, mayhave the larger allowance for any slips or mistakes. 

[Illustration: 370]

Now therefore I return to St. Paul, who uses these expressions [_Yesuffer fools gladly_] applying it to himself; and again [_As a foolreceive me_], and [_That which I speak, I speak not after the Lord, butas it were foolishly_]; and in another place [_We are fools for Christ'ssake_]. See how these commendations of Folly are equal to the author ofthem, both great and sacred. The same holy person does yet enjoin andcommand the being a fool, as a virtue of all others most requisite andnecessary: for, says he [_If any man seem to be wise in this world, lethim become a fool that he may be wise_]. Thus St. Luke records, howour Saviour, after his resurrection, joining himself with two of hisdisciples travelling to Emmaus, at his first salutation he calls themfools, saying [_O fools, and slow of heart to believe_], Nor may thisseem strange in comparison to what is yet farther delivered by St. Paul, who adventures to attribute something of Folly even to the all-wise Godhimself [_The foolishness of God_ (says he) _is wiser than men_];in which text St. Origen would not have the word foolishness any wayreferred to men, or applicable to the same sense, wherein is to beunderstood that other passage of St. Paul [_The preaching of the crossto them that perish, foolishness_]. But why do I put myself to thetrouble of citing so many proofs, since this one may suffice for all, namely, that in those mystical psalms wherein David represents thetype of Christ, it is there acknowledged by our Saviour, in way ofconfession, that even he himself was guilty of Folly; _Thou_ (says he)_O God knowest my foolishness?_ Nor is it without some reason thatfools for their plainness and sincerity of heart have always beenmost acceptable to God Almighty. For as the princes of this worldhave shrewdly suspected, and carried a jealous eye over such of theirsubjects as were the most observant, and deepest politicians (for thusCaesar was afraid of the plodding Cassius, and Brutus, thinkinghimself secure enough from the careless drinking Anthony; Nero likewisemistrusted Seneca, and Dionysius would have been willingly rid ofPlato), whereas they can all put greater confidence in such as are ofless subtlety and contrivance So our Saviour in like manner dislikesand condemns the wise and crafty, as St. Paul does expressly declarein these words, _God hath chosen the foolish things of the world_; andagain, _it pleased God by foolishness to save the world_; implying thatby wisdom it could never have been saved. Nay, God himself testifiesas much when he speaks by the mouth of his prophet, _I will destroythe wisdom of the wise, and bring to nought the understanding of thelearned_. Again, our Saviour does solemnly return his Father thanksfor that he had _hidden the mysteries of salvation from the wise, and revealed them to babes_, i. E. , to fools; for the original word_vnpriois_, being opposed to _oooois_ if one signify wise, the othermust foolish. To the same purpose did our blessed Lord frequentlycondemn and upbraid the scribes, pharisees, and lawyers, while hecarries himself kind and obliging to the unlearned multitude: for whatotherwise can be the meaning of that tart denunciation, _Woe unto youscribes and pharisees_, than woe unto you wise men, whereas he seemschiefly delighted with children, women, and illiterate fishermen. 

We may farther take notice, that among all the several kinds of brutecreatures he shews greatest liking to such as are farthest distant fromthe subtlety of the fox. Thus in his progress to Jerusalem he chose toride sitting upon an ass, though, if he pleased, he might have mountedthe back of a lion with more of state, and as little of danger. The HolySpirit chose rather likewise to descend from heaven in the shape of asimple gall-less dove, than that of an eagle, kite, or other more loftyfowl. 

Thus all along in the holy scriptures there are frequent metaphors andsimilitudes of the most inoffensive creatures, such as stags, hinds, lambs, and the like. Nay, those blessed souls that in the day ofjudgment are to be placed at our Saviour's right hand are called sheep, which are the most senseless and stupid of all cattle, as is evidencedby Aristotle's Greek proverb, a sheepishness of temper, a dull, blockish, sleepy, unmanly humour. Yet of such a flock Christ is notashamed to profess himself the shepherd. Nay, he would not only have allhis proselytes termed sheep, but even he himself would be called a lamb;as when John the Baptist seeth Jesus coming unto him, he saith, _Beholdthe Lamb of God_; which same title is very often given to our Saviour inthe apocalypse. 

All this amounts to no less than that all mortal men are fools, even therighteous and godly as well as sinners; nay, in some sense our blessedLord himself, who, although he was the _wisdom of the Father_, yetto repair the infirmities of fallen man, he became in some measure apartaker of human Folly, when he _took our nature upon him, and wasfound in fashion as a man_; or when _God made him to be sin for us, whoknew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him_. Norwould he heal those breaches our sins had made by any other methodthan by the _foolishness of the cross_, published by the ignorant andunlearned apostles, to whom he frequently recommends the excellenceof Folly, cautioning them against the infectiousness of wisdom, by theseveral examples he proposes them to imitate, such as children, lilies, sparrows, mustard, and such like beings, which are either whollyinanimate, or at least devoid of reason and ingenuity, guided byno other conduct than that of instinct, without care, trouble, orcontrivance. To the same intent the disciples were warned by their lordand master, that when they should be _brought unto the synagogues, andunto magistrates and powers_, they shall _take no thought how, or whatthing they should answer, nor what they should say_: they were againstrictly forbid to _enquire into the times and seasons_, or to placeany confidence in their own abilities, but to depend wholly upon divineassistance. 

[Illustration: 378]

At the first peopling of paradise the Almighty had never laid so stricta charge on our father Adam to refrain from _eating of the tree ofknowledge_ except he had thereby forewarned that the taste of knowledgewould be the bane of all happiness. St. Paul says expressly, that_knowledge puffeth up, i. E. _, it is fatal and poisonous. In pursuancewhereunto St. Bernard interprets that _exceeding high mountain_ whereonthe devil had erected his seat to have been the mountain of knowledge. And perhaps this may be another argument which ought not to be omitted, namely, that Folly is acceptable, at least excusable, with the gods, inasmuch, as they easily pass by the heedless failures of fools, whilethe miscarriages of such as are known to have more wit shall very hardlyobtain a pardon; nay, when a wise man comes to sue for an acquitmentfrom any guilt, he must shroud himself under the patronage and pretextof Folly. For thus in the twelfth of Numbers Aaron entreats Moses tostay the leprosy of his sister Miriam, saying, _alas, my Lord, I beseechthee lay not the sin upon us wherein we have done foolishly_. Thus, when David spared Saul's life, when he found him sleeping in a tentof Hachilah, not willing to _stretch forth his hand against the Lord'sanointed, Saul excuses his former severity by confessing, _Behold, Ihave played the fool, and have erred exceedingly_. David also himself inmuch the same form begs the remission of his sin from God Almighty withthis prayer, _Lord, I pray thee take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly_; as if he could not have hoped otherwiseto have his pardon granted except he petitioned for it under the covertand mitigation of Folly. The agreeable practice of our Saviour isyet more convincing, who, when he hung upon the cross, prayed for hisenemies, saying, _Father, forgive them_, urging no other plea in theirbehalf than that of their ignorance, _for they know not what they do_. To the same effect St. Paul in his first epistle to Timothy acknowledgeshe had been a blasphemer and a persecutor, _But (saith he) _I obtainedmercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief_. Now what is the meaningof the phrase [_I did it ignorantly_] but only this? My fault wasoccasioned from a misinformed Folly, not from a deliberate malice. Whatsignifies [_I obtained mercy_] but only that I should not otherwise haveobtained it had not folly and ignorance been my vindication? To the samepurpose is that other passage in the mysterious Psalmist, which I forgotto mention in its proper place, namely, _Oh remember not the sins andoffences of my youth!_ the word which we render offences, is in Latin_ignorantias_, ignorances. Observe, the two things he alleges in hisexcuse are, first, his rawness of age, to which Folly and want ofexperience are constant attendants: and secondly, his ignorances, expressed in the plural number for an enhancement and aggravation of hisfoolishness. 

But that I may not wear out this subject too far, to draw now towards aconclusion, it is observable that the christian religion seems to havesome relation to Folly, and no alliance at all with wisdom. Of the truthwhereof, if you desire farther proof than my bare word you may please, first, to consider, that children, women, old men, and fools, led asit were by a secret impulse of nature, are always most constant inrepairing to church, and most zealous, devout and attentive in theperformance of the several parts of divine service; nay, the firstpromulgators of the gospel, and the first converts to Christianity, weremen of plainness and simplicity, wholly unacquainted with secular policyor learning. 

Farther, there are none more silly, or nearer their wits' end, thanthose who are too superstitiously religious: they are profusely lavishin their charity; they invite fresh affronts by an easy forgiveness ofpast injuries; they suffer themselves to be cheated and imposed upon bylaying claim to the innocence of the dove; they make it the interest ofno person to oblige them, because they will love, and _do good to theirenemies_, as much as to the most endearing friends; they banish allpleasure, feeding upon the penance of watching, weeping, fasting, sorrowand reproach; they value not their lives, but with St. Paul, _wish to bedissolved_, and covet the fiery trial of martyrdom: in a word, they seemaltogether so destitute of common sense, that their soul seems alreadyseparated from the dead and inactive body. And what else can we imagineall this to be than downright madness? It is the less strange thereforethat at the feast of Pentecost the apostles should be thought drunk withnew wine; or that St. Paul was censured by Festus to have been besidehimself. 

And since I have had the confidence to go thus far, I shall venture yeta little forwarder, and be so bold as to say thus much more: all thatfinal happiness, which christians, through so many rubs and briars ofdifficulties, contend for, is at last no better than a sort of follyand madness. This, no question, will be thought extravagantly spoke; butconsider awhile, and deliberately state the case. 

First, then, the christians so far agree with the Platonists as tobelieve that the body is no better than a prison or dungeon for theconfinement of the soul. That therefore, while the soul is shackledto the walls of flesh, her soaring wings are impeded, and all herenlivening faculties clogged and fettered by the gross particles ofmatter, so that she can neither freely range after, nor, when happilyovertook, can quietly contemplate her proper object of truth. 

Farther, Plato defines philosophy to be the meditation of death, becausethe one performs the same office with the other; namely, withdraws themind from all visible and corporeal objects; therefore while the souldoes patiently actuate the several organs and members of the body, solong is a man accounted of a good and sound disposition; but when thesoul, weary of her confinement, struggles to break jail, and fly beyondher cage of flesh and blood, then a man is censured at least for beingmagotty and crack-brained; nay, if there be any defect in the externalorgans it is then termed downright madness. And yet many times personsthus affected shall have prophetic ecstacies of foretelling things tocome, shall in a rapture talk languages they never before learned, andseem in all things actuated by somewhat divine and extraordinary; andall this, no doubt, is only the effect of the soul's being more releasedfrom its engagement to the body, whereby it can with less impedimentexert the energy of life and motion. From hence, no question, has sprungan observation of like nature, confirmed now into a settled opinion, that _some long experienced souls in the world, before their dislodging, arrive to the height of prophetic spirits_. 

[Illustration: 384]

If this disorder arise from an intemperance in religion, and too high astrain of devotion, though it be of a somewhat differing sort, yet it isso near akin to the former, that a great part of mankind apprehend it asa mere madness; especially when persons of that superstitious humourare so pragmatical and singular as to separate and live apart as itwere from all the world beside: so as they seem to have experiencedwhat Plato dreams to have happened between some, who, enclosed in adark cave, did only ruminate on the ideas and abstracted speculationsof entities; and one other of their company, who had got abroad into theopen light, and at his return tells them what a blind mistake theyhad lain under; that he had seen the substance of what their dotage ofimagination reached only in shadow; that therefore he could not but pityand condole their deluding dreams, while they on the other side no lessbewail his frenzy, and turn him out of their society for a lunatic andmadman. 

Thus the vulgar are wholly taken up with those objects that are mostfamiliar to their senses, beyond which they are apt to think all is butfairy-land; while those that are devoutly religious scorn to set theirthoughts or affections on any things below, but mount their soul tothe pursuit of incorporeal and invisible beings. The former, in theirmarshalling the requisites of happiness, place riches in the front, theendowments of the body in the next rank, and leave the accomplishmentsof the soul to bring up the rear; nay, some will scarce believe there isany such thing at all as the soul, because they cannot literally see areason of their faith; while the other pay their first fruits of serviceto that most simple and incomprehensible Being, God, employ themselvesnext in providing for the happiness of that which comes nearest totheir immortal soul, being not at all mindful of their corrupt bodilycarcases, and slighting money as the dirt and rubbish of the world; orif at any time some urging occasions require them to become entangledin secular affairs, they do it with regret, and a kind of ill-will, observing what St. Paul advises his _Corinthians, having wives, and yetbeing as though they had none; buying, and yet remaining as though theypossessed not_. 

There are between these two sorts of persons many differences in severalother respects. As first, though all the senses have the same mutualrelation to the body, yet some are more gross than others; as those fivecorporeal ones, of touching, hearing, smelling, seeing, tasting, whereassome again are more refined, and less adulterated with matter; such arethe memory, the understanding, and the will. Now the mind will be alwaysmost ready and expedite at that to which it is naturally most inclined. Hence is it that a pious soul, employing all its power and abilities inthe pressing after such things as are farthest removed from sense, isperfectly stupid and brutish in the management of any worldly affairs;while on the other side, the vulgar are so intent upon their businessand employment, that they have not time to bestow one poor thought upona future eternity. From such ardour of divine meditation was it thatSaint Bernard in his study drank oil instead of wine, and yet histhoughts were so taken up that he never observed the mistake. 

Farther, among the passions of the soul, some have a greatercommunication with the body than others; as lust, the desire of meat andsleep, anger, pride, and envy; with these the pious man is in continualwar, and irreconcile-able enmity, while the vulgar cherish and fomentthem as the best comforts of life. 

There are other affections of a middle nature, common and innate toevery man; such are love to one's country, duty to parents, love tochildren, kindness to friends, and such like; to these the vulgar paysome respect, but the religious endeavour to supplant and eradicate fromtheir soul, except they can raise and sublimate them to the most refinedpitch of virtue; so as to love or honour their parents, not barely underthat character (for what did they do more than generate a body? nay, even for that we are primarily beholden to God, the first parent of allmankind), but as good men only, upon whom is imprinted the lively imageof that divine nature, which they esteem as the chief and only good, beyond whom nothing deserves to be beloved, nothing desired. 

By the same rule they measure all the other offices or duties of life;in each of which, whatever is earthly and corporeal, shall, if notwholly rejected, yet at least be put behind what faith makes the_substance of things not seen_. Thus in the sacraments, and all otheracts of religion, they make a difference between the outward appearanceor body of them, and the more inward soul or spirit. As to instance, infasting, they think it very ineffectual to abstain from flesh, or debarthemselves of a meal's meat (which yet is all the vulgar understand byhis duty), unless they likewise restrain their passions, subdue theiranger, and mortify their pride; that the soul being thus disengagedfrom the entanglement of the body, may have a better relish to spiritualobjects, and take an antepast of heaven. Thus (say they) in the holyEucharist, though the outward form and ceremonies are not wholly to bedespised, yet are these prejudicial, at least unprofitable, if as baresigns only they are not accompanied with the thing signified, which is_the body and blood of Christ_, whose death, till his second coming, we are hereby to represent by the vanquishing and burying our vileaffections that they may arise to a newness of life, and be united firstto each other, then all to Christ. 

These are the actions and meditations of the truly pious person; whilethe vulgar place all their religion in crowding up close to the altar, in listening to the words of the priest, and in being very circumspectat the observance of each trifling ceremony. Nor is it in such casesonly as we have here given for instances, but through his whole courseof life, that the pious man, without any regard to the baser materialsof the body, spends himself wholly in a fixed intentness upon spiritual, invisible, and eternal objects. 

Now since these persons stand off, and keep at so wide a distancebetween themselves, it is customary for them both to think each othermad: and were I to give my opinion to which of the two the name doesmost properly belong, I should, I confess, adjudge it to the religious;of the reasonableness whereof you may be farther convinced if I proceedto demonstrate what I formerly hinted at, namely, that that ultimatehappiness which religion proposes is no other than some sort of madness. 

First, therefore, Plato dreamed somewhat of this nature when he tellsus that the madness of lovers was of all other dispositions of the bodymost desirable; for he who is once thoroughly smitten with this passion, lives no longer within himself, but has removed his soul to the sameplace where he has settled his affections, and loses himself to find theobject he so much dotes upon: this straying now, and wandering of asoul from its own mansion, what is it better than a plain transport ofmadness? What else can be the meaning of those proverbial phrases, _nonest apua se_, he is not himself; _ad te redi_, recover yourself; and_sibi redditus est_, he is come again to himself? And accordinglyas love is more hot and eager, so is the madness thence ensuing moreincurable, and yet more happy. Now what shall be that future happinessof glorified saints, which pious souls here on earth so earnestly groanfor, but only that the spirit, as the more potent and prevalent victor, shall over-master and swallow up the body; and that the more easily, because while here below, the several members, by being mortified, andkept in subjection, were the better prepared for this separating change;and afterward the spirit itself shall be lost, and drowned in the abyssof beatific vision, so as the whole man will be then perfectly beyondall its own bounds, and be no otherwise happy than as transportedinto ecstasy and wonder, it feels some unspeakable influence fromthat omnipotent Being, which makes all things completely blessed, byassimilating them to his own likeness. Now although this happiness bethen only consummated, when souls at the general resurrection shall bere-united to their bodies, and both be clothed with immortality; yetbecause a religious life is but a continued meditation upon, and as itwere a transcript of the joys of heaven, therefore to such persons thereis allowed some relish and foretaste of that pleasure here, which isto be their reward hereafter. And although this indeed be but a smallpittance of satisfaction compared with that future inexhaustiblefountain of blessedness, yet does it abundantly over-balance all worldlydelights, were they all in conjunction set off to their best advantage;so great is the precedency of spiritual things before corporeal, ofinvisible before material and visible. This is what the apostle givesan eloquent description of, where he says by way of encouragement, that_eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart ofman to conceive those things which God hath prepared for them that lovehim_. 

This likewise is that better part which Mary chose, which shall not betaken from her, but perfected and completed by her mortal putting onimmortality. 

[Illustration: 397-398]

Now those who are thus devoutly affected (though few there are so), undergo somewhat of strange alteration, which very nearly approaches tomadness; they speak many things at an abrupt and incoherent rate, as ifthey were actuated by some possessing demon; they make an inarticulatenoise, without any distinguishable sense or meaning; they sometimesscrew and distort their faces to uncouth and antic looks; at one timebeyond measure cheerful, then as immoderately sullen; now sobbing, thenlaughing, and soon after sighing, as if they were perfectly distracted, and out of their senses. If they have any sober intervals of comingto themselves again, like St. Paul they then confess, that _they werecaught up they know not where, whether in the body, or out of the body, they cannot tell_; as if they had been in a dead sleep or trance, theyremember nothing of what they have heard, seen, said, or done: this theyonly know, that their past delusion was a most desirable happiness; thattherefore they bewail nothing more than the loss of it, nor wish forany greater joy than the quick return of it, and more durable abodefor ever. And this (as I have said) is the foretaste or anticipation offuture blessedness. 

But I doubt I have forgot myself, and have already transgressed thebounds of modesty. However, if I have said anything too confidently orimpertinently, be pleased to consider that it was spoke by Folly, andthat under the person of a woman; yet at the same time remember theapplicableness of that Greek proverb:--

 A fool oft speaks a seasonable truth. 

Unless you will be so witty as to object that this makes no apologyfor me, because the word _aunp_ signifies a man, not a woman, andconsequently my sex debars me from the benefit of that observation. 

I perceive now, that, for a concluding treat, you expect a formalepilogue, and the summing up of all in a brief recitation; but I willassure you, you are grossly mistaken if you suppose that after such ahodge-podge medley of speech I should be able to recollect anything Ihave delivered. Beside, as it is an old proverb, _I hate a pot-companionwith a good memory_; so indeed I may as truly say, _I hate a hearer thatwill carry any thing away with him_. Wherefore, in short:--

[Illustration: Tailpiece 401]

 Farewell! live long, drink deep, be jolly, Ye most illustrious votaries of folly!

 A POEM ON THE FOREGOING WORK. 

 THERE'S ne'er a blade of honour in the town, But if you chance to term him _fool_ and _clown_, Straight _satisfaction_ cries, and then with speed The time, the place, and rapier's length's decreed. Prodigious fops, I'll swear, which can't agree To be call'd what's their happiness to be: Blest _Idiots!_ That in an humble sphere securely move, And there the sweets of a safe _dulness_ prove, Nor envy the proud heights of those who range above. _Folly_, sure friend of a misguided will, Affords a kind excuse for doing ill; And _Socrates_, that prudent, thinking tool, Had the gods lik'd him would have prov'd a _fool_. Methinks our author, when without a flaw, The graces of his mistress he does draw, Wishes (if _Metempsychosis_ be true, And souls do change their case, and act anew), In his next life he only might aspire To the few brains of some soft country squire, Whose head with such like rudiments is fraught, As in his youth his careful grannum taught. 

 And now (dear friend) how shall we to thy brow Pay all those laurels which we justly owe? For thou fresh honours to the work dost bring, And to the theme: nor seems that pleasing thing, Which he so well in _Latin_ has express'd, Less comical in _English_ garments dress'd; Thy sentences are all so clearly wrought, And so exactly plac'd in every thought, That, which is more oblig'd we scarce can see The subject by thine author, or himself by thee. 

FINIS