THE PRAISE OF FOLLY THE PRAISE or FOLLI BY DESIDEEIUS EEASMUS Translated from the Latin. And containing Holbein's Illustrations LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS & CO GLASGOW: THOMAS D. MORISON 1887 & OIQ PEEFATOEY DEDICATION,. IN my late travels from Italy into England, that I might not trifle away my time in the rehearsal of old wives' fables. I thought it more pertinent to employ my thoughts in reflecting upon some past studies, or calling to remembrance several of those highly learned, as well as smartly ingenious friends, I had left behind, among whom you, dear SIB,* were represented as the chief. And whose memory, while absent at this distance, I respect with no less a complacency than I was wont while present to enjoy your more intimate conversation. Which last afforded me the greatest satisfaction, I could possibly hope for. Having therefore resolved to be a doing, and deeming that time improper for any serious concerns, * Sir Thomas Mo6re. PREFATORY DEDICATION. I thought good to divert myself with drawing up a panegyric upon Folly. How ! what maggot, says you, put this in your head ? Why, the first hint, Sir, was y,our. own surname of More, which in Greek, comes as" hear the literal sound of the word as you ',y4urs&]?f ar&''dt,stant from the signification of it, and that in all men's judgments is vastly wide. In the next place, I supposed that this kind of sporting wit would be by you more especially accepted of. By you, Sir, that are wont with this sort oj!ocose tail}ery,_ such as, if I mistake not, is neither dull nor impertinent, to be mightily pleased, and in your ordinary converse to approve yourself a Democritus junior. For truly, as you do from a singular vein of wit very much dissent from the common herd of mankind. 'So, by an incredible affability and pliableness of temper, you have the art of suiting your humour with all sorts of com- panies. I hope therefore you will not only readily accept of this rude essay as a token from your friend ; but take it under your more immediate pro- tection, as being dedicated to you, and by that title adopted for yours, rather than to be fathered as my own. PREFATORY DEDICATION. And it is a chance if there be wanting some quarrelsome persons that will shew their teeth, and pretend these fooleries are either too^buffoon-like for a grave divine, or too satirical for a meek Christian. And so will exclaim against me as if I were vamping up some old farce, or acted anew the Lucian again with a peevish snarling at all things. But those who are offended at the lightness and pedantry of this subject, I would have them consider that I do not set myself for the first example of this kind, but that the same has been oft done by many con- siderable authors. For thus several ages since, Homer wrote of no more weighty a subject than 01 a war between the frogs and mice ; Virgil of a gnat and a pudding-cake; and Ovid of a nut. Polycrates commended the cruelty of Busiris ; and Isocrates, who corrects him for this, did as much for the in- justice of Glaucus. Favorinus extolled Thersites, and wrote in praise of a quartan ague. Synesius pleaded in behalf of baldness ; and Lucian defended a sipping fly. Seneca drollingly related the deify- ing of Claudius ; Plutarch the dialogue betwixt Gryllus and Ulysses ; Lucian and Apuleius the story of an ass. And somebody else records the last PREFATORY DEDICATION. will of a hog, of which St. Hierom makes mention. So that if they please, let themselves think the worst of me, and fancy to themselves that I was all this 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 each particular course of life, we afford no diversion to studies. Especially when trifles may be a whet to more serious thoughts, and comical matters may be so treated of, so that a reader of ordinary sense may possibly thence reap more advantage than from some more big and stately' argument. And while one in a long winded oration descants in commendation of rhetoric or philosophy, another in a fulsome harangue sets forth the praise of his nation, a third makes a zealous invitation to a holy war with the Turks, another confidently sets up for a fortune-teller, and a fifth states questions upon mere impertinences. But as nothing is more childish than to handle a serious subject in a loose, wanton style, so is there nothing more pleasant than so to treat of trifles, as to make them seem nothing less than what their name im- ports. As to what relates to myself, I must be PREFATORY DEDICATION. forced to submit to the judgment of others ; yet, except that I am too partial to be judge in my own case, I am apt to believe I have praised Folly in such a mariner as not to have deserved the name of fool for my pains. To reply now to the objection of sj/dricalness. Wits have been always allowed this privilege, that they might be smart upon any transactions of life, if so be their liberty did not extend to railing. Which makes me wonder at the tender -eared humour of this age, which will admit of no address without the prefatory repetition of all formal titles. Nay, you may find some so preposterously devout, that they will sooner wink at the greatest affront against our Saviour, than be content that a prince, or a pope, should be nettled witlxthe lea^-joke^r gird, especially injvvhat relates^ to their ordinary customs. But he who so blames men's irregulari- ties, as to lash at no one particular person by name^ does he, I say, seem to_car_0properly as to teach and instruct ? And if so, make any farther excuse ? Beside, he who in his strictures points indifferently at allTTie^sBBms not angry at one man 3 but at all vices. PREFATORY DEDICATION. Therefore, if any singly complain they are par- ticularly reflected upon, they do but betray their own guilt, at least their cowardice. Saint Hierom dealt in the same argument at a much freer and sharper rate ; nay, and he did not sometimes re- frain from naming the persons. Whereas I have not only stifled the mentioning any one person, but have so tempered my style, as the ingenious reader will easily perceive! I aimed at diversion rather than satirel] Neither did I so far imitate Juvenal, as to rake into the sink of vices to procure a laughter, rather thanj^Eeate- a h^arfcy-f^Jbt^rreriee. If there be any one that after all remains yet unsatisfied, let him at least consider that there may be good use made of being reprehended by Folly, which since we have feigned as speaking, we must keep up that character which is suitable to the person introduced. But why do I trouble you, Sir, with this need- less apology, you that are so peculiar a patron ; as, though the cause itself be none of the best, you can at least give it the best protection. Farewell. THE PRAISE or FOLLY: It is Folly Who Speaks. |OW slightly soever I am esteemed in the common vogue of the world, for I well know how disingenuously Folly is decried, even by those who are them- selves the greatest fools, yet it is from my influence alone that the whole universe receives jf ho. ie Linen t of mirth and jollity. Of which this' may be urged as a convincing argument, in that as soon as I appeared to speak before this numerous assembly all their countenances were gilded over with a lively sparkling pleasantness. 10 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. You soon welcomed me with so encouraging a look, you spurred me on with so cheerful a hum, that truly in all appearance, you seemed now flushed with a good dose of reviving nectar, when as just before, you sate drowsy and melancholy, as if 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 the curtains of the darksome night ; or as when, after a hard winter, the restorative spring breathes a more en- livening air, nature forthwith changes her apparel, and all things seem to renew their age ; so at the first sight of me you all unmask, and appear in more lively colours. That therefore which expert orators can scarce effect by all their little artifice of eloquence, to wit, a raising the attentions of their auditors to a composedness of thought, this a bare look from me has commanded. The reason why I appear in -'tbrs^DtidJand of --garb, you shall soon be in- formed of, if for so short a while you will have but the patience to lend me an ear. Yet not such a one as you are wont to hearken with to your reverend preachers, but as you listen withal to ! I ^V-:;:^ UNIVERSITY THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 11 TTIOIIJJ^NIIIJ^ buffoona, arH Tn^rry-ft-yH-^w g ; in short, such as formerly were 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 sort who undertake the v drudgery of tyrannizing over ^chooLbo.ys, and teach a more than womanish knack of brawling. But in imitation of those ancient ones, who to avoid the scandalous epithet of wise, preferred this title of sophists ; the task of these was to celebrate the worth of gods and heroes. Prepare therefore to be entertained with a panegywer^et^riot upon Her- cules, Solon, or any other grandee, kut^on myself, that is, upon Folly. AncnTere I value not their censure that pretend r?1 it is foppish and affected for any person to praise himself. Yet let it be as silly as they please, if they will but allow it needful : and indeed what is more befitting than that Folly should be the trum- pet of her own praise, and dance after her own pipe ? For who can set me forth better than my- self? Or who can pretend to be so well acquainted with my condition ? And yet further, I may safely urge, that all this 12 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. is no more than the same with what is done by several seemingly great and wise men, who with a new-fashioned modesty employ some paltry orator or scribbling poet, whom they brihe_to_flatter them with some high-flown character, that shall consist ojlmere ites-and shams. And yet the persons thus extolled shall bristle up, and, peacock-like, bespread their plumes, while the impudent parasite magnifies the pppr_ wretch to the-skiesj-and proposes him as a complete pattern of all virtues, from each of which he is yet as far distant as heaven itself from hell. What is all this in the mean while, but the tricking up of a daw . in stolen feathers ; a labouring to change the black-a-moor's hue, and the drawing on a pigmy's frock over the shoulders of a giant. Lastly, I verify the old observation, that allows him a right of praising himself, who has nobody else to do it for him : for really, I cannot but admire at that ingratitude, shall I term it, or blockishness ( of mankind, who when they all willingly pay to me .] their utmost devoir, and freely acknowledge their respective obligations. That notwithstanding this, there should have been none so grateful or com- plaisant as to have bestowed on me a coramenda- THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 13 tory oration, especially when there have not been wanting such as at a great expense of sweat, and loss of sleep, have in elaborate speeches, given high encomiums to tyrants, agues, flies, baldness, and i vi i CAV6M\ e. V o- ^. such like trumperies. I shall entertain you with a hasty and unpre- meditated, but so much the more natural dis- course. My venting it ex tempore, I would not have you think proceeds from any principles of vain glory by which ordinary orators square their attempts, who, as it is easy to observe, when they are 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 in a great hurry, and upon very short warning. Whereas the reason of my not being provided beforehand is only because it was always my< humour constantly to speak that which lies upper- most. ^ Next, let no one be so fond as to imagine, that I should so far stint my invention to the method of other pleaders, as first to define, and then divide my subject, i.e., myself. For it is equally hazardous to attempt the crowding her within the 14 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. narrow limits of a definition, whose nature is of so diffusive an extent, or to mangle and disjoin that, to the adoration whereof all nations unitedly con- cur. Beside, to what purpose is it to lay down a definition for a faint resemblance, and mere shadow of me, while appearing here personally, you may view me at a more certain light ? And if your eye-sight fail not, you may at first blush discern me to be her whom the Greeks term MwpU, the Latins stultitia. But why need I have been so impertinent as to have told you this, as if my very looks did not sufficiently betray what I am ; or supposing any be so credulous as to take me for some sage matron or goddess of wisdom, as if a single glance from me would not immediately correct their mistake, while iny visage, the exact reflex of my soul, would supply and supersede the trouble of any other confessions. For I appear always in my natural colours, and an unartificial dress, and never let my face pretend one thing, and my heart conceal an- other. Nay, and in all things I am so true to my principles, that I cannot be so much as counter- feited, even by those who challenge the name of THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 15 witsjj yet indeed are no better than jackanapes tripped 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 they are so ashamed of my rela- tion, as to cast it in others' dish for a shame and 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 after the example of some modern orators, who swell to that proportion of conceitedness. as to vaunt themselves for so many giants of eloquence, if with a double-tongued fluency they can plead ; indifferently for either side, and deem it a very doughty exploit if they can but interlard a Latin sentence with some Greek word, which for seeming garnish they crowd in at a venture. And rather than be at a stand for some cramp words, they will furnish up a long scroll of old obsolete terms out of some musty author, and foist them in, to amuse the reader with, that those who under- 16 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. stand them may be tickled with the happiness of being acquainted with them : and those who under- stand them not, the less they know the more they may admire. Whereas it has been always a custom to those of our side to contemn and under- value whatever is strange and unusual, while those that are better conceited of themselves will nod and smile, and prick up their ears, that they may be thought easily to apprehend that, of which perhaps they do not understand one word. And so much for this ; pardon the digression, now I return. Of my name I have informed you, Sirs ; what additional epithet to give you I know not, except you will be content with that of most foolish ; for under what more proper appellation can the god- dess Folly greet her devotees ? But since there are few acquainted with my family and original, I will now give you some account of my extraction. $ First then, my father was neither the chaos, nor hell, nor Saturn, nor Jupiter, nor any of those old, worn out, grandsire gods, but Plutus, the, very same that, maugre Homer, Hesiod, nay, in spite of Jove himself, was the primary father 3 I THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 17 of the universe. At whose alone beck, for all ages, religion and civil policy, have been succes- sively undermined and re-established ; by whose powerful influence war, peace, empire, debates, justice, magistracy, marriage, leagues, compacts, laws, arts; I have almost run myself out of breath, but in a word, all affairs of church and state, and business of private .concern, are severally ordered and administered. Without whose assistance all the Poets' gang of deities, nay, I may be so bold as to say the very major-domos of heaven, would either dwindle into nothing, or at least be confined to their respective homes without any ceremonies of devotional address. Whoever he combats with as an enemy, nothing can be armour-proof against his assaults ; and whosoever he sides with as a friend, may grapple at even hand with Jove, and all his bolts. Of such a father I may well brag ; and he begot me, not of his brain, as Jupiter did the hag Pallas, but of a pretty young nymph, famed for wit no less than beauty v''/ And this was not done in dull wed- lock, but what gave a greater pleasure, it was done at a stolen moment, as we may modestly phrase it. 18 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. But to prevent your mistaking me, I would have you understand that my father was not that Plutus in Aristophanes, old, dry, withered, sapless and blind ; but the same in his younger and brisker days, and when his veins were more impregnated, and the heat of his youth somewhat higher in- flamed by a chirping cup of nectar, which he had just before drank very freely of, at a merry-meeting of the gods. //'And now presuming you may be inquisitive after my birth-place, the quality of the place we are born in, being now looked upon as a main ingredient of gentility. I was born neither in the floating Delos, nor on the frothy sea, nor in any of these privacies, where too forward mothers are wont to retire for undiscovered delivery. But in the fortune islands, where all things grow without the toil of hus- bandry, wherein there is no drudgery, no distem- pers, no old age, where in the fields grow no daflbdills, mallows, onions, pease, beans, or such kind of trash, but there give equal divertisement to our sight and smelling, rue, all-heal, bugloss, mar- joram, herb of life, roses, violets, hyacinth, and such like fragrances as perfume the gardens of Adonis. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 19 And being born amongst these delights, I did not, like other infants, come crying into the world, but perked up, and laughed immediately in my mother's face./ And there is no reason I should envy Jove for having a she-goat to his nurse, since I was more creditably suckled by two jolly nymphs ; the name of the first drunkenness, one of Bacchus's offspring, the other ignorance, the daughter of Pan ; both which you may here behold among several others of my train and attendants, whose particular names, if you would fain know, I will give you in short. ^/This, who goes with a mincing gait, and holds up her head so high, is Self-Love. She that looks so spruce, and makes such a noise and bustle, is Flattery. That other, which sits hum-drum, as if she were half asleep, is called ^r^etfulness. She that leans on her elbow, and sometimes yawningly stretches out her arms, is Laziness. This, that wears a plighted garland of flowers, and smells so perfumed, is Pleasure. The other, which ap- pears in so smooth a skin, and pampered-up flesh, is Sensuality. She that stares so wildly, and rolls about her eyes, is Madness. As to those two gods whom you see playing among 20 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. the lasses, the name of the one is Intemperance, the other SoujidJSleep. By the help and service of this retinue I bring all things under the verge of my power, lording it over the greatest kings and potentates. / You have now heard of my descent, my edu- cation, and my attendance ; that I may not be taxed as presumptuous in borrowing the title of a goddess, I come now in the next place to ac- quaint you what obliging favours I everywhere bestow, and how largely my jurisdiction extends : for if. as one has ingenuously noted, to be a god is no other than to be a benefactor of mankind : and if they have been thought deservedly deified who have invented the use of wine, corn, or any other convenience for the well-being of mortals, why may not I justly bear the van among the whole troop of gods, who in all, and toward all, exert an unparalleled bounty and beneficence ? For instance, in the first place, what can be more dear and precious than life itself? And yet for this are none beholden, save to me alone. For it is neither the spear of throughly-begotten Pallas, nor the buckler of cloud-gathering Jove, THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 21 that multiplies and propagates mankind : but that prime father of the universe, who at a dis- pleasing nod makes heaven itself to tremble. He, ^ I say, must lay aside his frightful ensigns of\ ' majesty, and put away that grim aspect where- with he makes the other gods to quake, and, stage player-like, must lay aside his usual character, if he would do that, the doing whereof he cannot refrain from, i,e., getting of children. The next place to the gods is challenged by the Stoics. But give me one as stoical as ill-nature can make him, and if I do not prevail on him to part with his beard, that bush of wisdom, though no other ornament than what nature in more ample manner has given to goats, yet at least he shall lay by his gravity, smooth up his brow, relinquish' his rigid tenets, and in despite of prejudice become sensible of some passion in wanton sport and dallying. In a word, this dictator of wisdom shall be glad to take Folly for his diversion, if ever he would arrive to the honour of a father. And why should I not tell my story out ? To proceed then. Is it the head, the face, the 22 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. breasts, the hands, the ears, or other more comely parts, that serve for instruments of generation ? I trow not, but it is that member of our body which is so odd and uncouth as can scarce be mentioned without a smile. This part, I say, is that fountain of life, from which originally spring all things in a truer sense than from the elemental seminary. Add to this, what man would be so silly as to run his head into the collar of a matrimonial noose, if, as wise men are wont to do, he had before-hand duly considered the inconveniences of a wedded life ? Or indeed what woman would accept a husband, if she did but forecast the pangs of child- birth, and the plague of being a nurse ? Since then you owe your birth to the bride-bed, and what was preparatory to that, the solemnizing .. of marriage to my waiting-woman Madness/ you cannot but acknowledge how much you are in- debted to me. Beside, those who had once dearly bought the experience of their folly, would never re-engage themselves in the same entanglement by a second match, if it were not occasioned by the forgetfulness of past dangers. And Venus herself, whatever Lucretius pretends to the contrary, can- 1 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. not deny, but that with out^myjassis tan ce, her pro- creative power would prove weak and ineffectual. It was from my sportive and tickling recreation that proceeded the old crabbed philosophers, and those who now supply their stead, the mortified monks and friars. As also kings, priests, arid popes, nay, the whole tribe of poetic 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 not sufficient to have made it appear that I am the source and original of all life, except^ I likewise shew that all the benefits of life are equally at my disposal. And what are such ? Why, can any one be said properly to live to whom pleasure is denied? You will give me your assent ; for there is none I know among you so wise shall I say, or so silly, as to be of a contrary opinion. The Stoics indeed contemn, and pretend to banish pleasure ; but this is only a dissembling trick, and a putting the vulgar out of conceit with it, that they may more quietly engross it to them- selves ; but I dare them now to confess what one stage of life is not melancholy, dull, tiresome, 24 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. i tedious, and uneasy, unless we spice it with pleasure, that hautgoust of Folly. Of the truth whereof, the never - enough to be commended Sophocles is sufficient authority, who gives me the highest character in that sentence of his, To know nothing is the sweetest life. Yet abating from this, let us examine the case more narrowly. Who knows not that the first scene of infancy is far the most pleasant and delightsome ? What, then, is it in children that makes us fo kiss, hug, and play with them, and that the bloodiest enemy can scarce have the heart to hurt them ; but their ingredients of innocence and Folly ? Of which nature out of providence did purposely compound and blend their tender infancy, that by a frank return of pleasure they might make some sort of amends for their parents' trouble, and give in caution as it were for the discharge of a future education ; the next advance from childhood is youth, and how favourably is this dealt with ; how kind, courteous, and respectful are all to it ? and how ready to become serviceable upon all occasions ? And whence reaps it this happiness ? Whence THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 25 indeed, but jrom_. me. only, by whose procurement it is furnished with little of wisdom, and so with the less of disquiet ? And when once lads begin to grow up, and attempt to write man, their pretti- ness does then soon decay, their briskness flags, their humours stagnate, their jollity ceases, and their blood grows cold; and the further they pro- ceed in years, the more they grow backward in the enjoyment of themselves, till waspish old age comes on, a burden to itself as well as others, and that so heavy and oppressive, as none would bear the weight of, unless out of pity to their sufferings. I again intervene, and lend a helping hand, assisting them at a dead lift, in the same method the poets feign their gods to succour dying men, by transforming them into new creatures, which I do by bringing them back, after they have one foot in the grave, to their infancy again ; so as there is a great deal of truth couched in that old proverb, " Once an old man, and twice a child." Now if any one be curious to understand what course I take to effect this alteration, my method is this. I bring them to my well of forgetful ness, the fountain whereof is in the Fortunate Islands, and the river 26 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. Lethe in hell but a small stream of it, and when they have there filled their bellies full, and washed down 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 is what I f mean by growing young again, j For what else is it to / be a child than to be a fool and an idiot ? It is the 1 being such that makes that age so acceptable : for who does not esteem it somewhat ominous to see a boy endowed with the discretion of a man, and there- fore for the curbing of too forward parts we have a disparaging proverb, " Soon ripe, soon rotten ? " And farther, who would keep company or have any thing to do with such an old blade, as, after the wear and harrowing of so many years should yet continue of as clear a head and sound a judgment as he had at any time been in his middle -age. And therefore it is great kindness of me that old men grow fools, since it is hereby only that they are freed from such vexations as would torment them if they were more wise : they can drink briskly, bear up stoutly, and lightly pass over such infirmities, as a far stronger constitution could scarce master. Sometime, with the old fellow in Plautus, they are I I I THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 27 brought back to their horn-book again, to learn to spell their fortune in love. / Most wretched would they needs be if they had but wit enough to be sensible of their hard condition ; but by my assist- ance, they carry off all well, and to their respective friends approve themselves good, sociable, jolly companions. Thus Homer makes aged Nestor famed for a smooth oily-tongued orator, while the delivery of Achilles was but rough, harsh, and hesitant ; and the same poet elsewhere tells us of old men that sate on the walls, and spake with a great deal of flourish and elegance. o And in this point indeed they surpass and outgo children, who are pretty forward in a softly, innocent prattle, but otherwise are too much tongue-tied, and want the other's most acceptable embellishment of a perpetual talkativeness. Add to this, that old men love to be playing with children, and children delight as much in them, to verify the proverb, that "Birds of a feather flock together." And indeed what difference can be discerned between them, but that the one is more furrowed with wrinkles, and has seen a little more of the world than the other ? For otherwise their whitish hair, their want of teeth, 28 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. their smallness of stature, their milk diet, their bald crowns, their prattling, their playing, their short memory, their heedlessness, and all their other en- dowments, exactly agree. And the more they ad- vance in years the nearer they come back to their cradle, till like children indeed, at last they depart the world, without any remorse at the loss of life, or sense of the pangs of death. And now let any one compare the excellency of my metamorphosing power to that which Ovid at- tributes to the gods ; their strange feats in some drunken passions we will omit for their credit sake, and instance only in such persons as they pretend great kindness for; these they transformed into trees, birds, insects, and sometimes serpents. But alas, their very change into somewhat else argues the destruction of what they were before. Whereas I can restore the same numerical man to his pristine state of youth, health and strength ; yea, what is more, if men would but so far-ponsult , their own interest, as to discard all thoughts of wisdom, and entirely resign themselves to my guidance and con- duct, old age should be a paradox, and each man's years a perpetual spring. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 29 For look how your hard plodding students, by a close sedentary confinement to their books, grow mopish, pale, and meagre, as if by a continual wrack of brains, and torture of invention, their veins were pumped dry, and their whole body squeezed sapless, whereas my followers are smooth, plump, and bucksome, and altogether as lusty as so many bacon-hogs, or sucking calves, never in their career of pleasure to be arrested with old age, if they could but keep themselves untainted from the contagiousness of wisdom, with the leprosy whereof, if at any time they are infected,[it is only for pre- vention, lest they should otherwise have been too happy. For a more ample confirmation of the truth of what foregoes, it is on all sides confessed, that Folly is the best preservative of youth, and the most effectual antidote against age. Arid it is a never-failing observation made of the people of Brabant, that, contrary to the proverb of " Older and wiser/' the more ancient they grow, the more fools they are ; and there is not any one country, whose inhabitants enjoy themselves better, and rub through the world with more ease and quiet. To 30 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. these are nearly related, as well by affinity of customs, as of neighbourhood, my friends the Hollanders. Mine I may well call them, for they stick so close and lovingly to me, that they are styled fools to a proverb, and yet scorn to be ashamed of their name. Well, let fond mortals go now in a needless quest of some Medea, Circe, Venus, or some enchanted fountain, for a resto- rative of age, whereas the accurate performance of this feat lies only within the ability of my art and skill. / It is I only who have the receipt of making that liquor wherewith Memnon's daughter lengthened out her grandfather's declining days : it is I that am that Venus, who so far restored the languishing Phaon, as to make Sappho fall deeply in love with his beauty. /J/U Mine are those herbs, mine those charms, that not only lure back swift time, when past and gone, but what is more to be admired, clip its wings, and prevent all farther flight. So then, if you will all agree to my verdict, that nothing is more desirable than the being young, nor any thing more loathed than contemptible old age, you must needs acknowledge it as an unrequitable obligation THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 31 from me, for fencing off the one, and perpetuating the other. But why should I confine my discourse to the narrow subject of mankind only ? View the whole heaven itself, and then tell me what one of that divine tribe would not be mean and despicable, if my name did not lend him some respect and authority. /? Why is Bacchus always painted as a young man, but only because he is freakish, drunk, and mad ; and spending his time in toping, dancing, masking, and revelling, seems to have nothing in the least to do with wisdom ? Nay, so far is he from the affectation of being accounted wise, that he is content, all the rights of devotion which are paid unto him should consist of apishness and drollery. Farther, what scoffs and jeers did not the old comedians throw upon him ? swinish punch-gut god, say they, that smells rank of the sty he was sowed up in, and so on.// ^^ 2 But prithee, who in this case, always merry, youthful, soaked in wine, and drowned in pleasure, who, I say, in such a case, would change conditions, either with the lofty menace-looking Jove, the grave, yet timorous Pan, the stately Pallas, or 32 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. indeed any one other of heaven's landlords ? Why is Cupid feigned as a boy, but only because he is an under- witted whipster, that neither acts nor thinks any thing with discretion ? Why is Y^nus adored for the mirror of beauty, but only because she and I claim kindred, she being of the same complexion with my father Plutus, and therefore called by Homer the Golden Goddess ? Beside, she imitates me in being always a laughing, if either we believe the poets, or their near kinsmen the painters, the first mentioning, the other drawing her constantly in that posture. Add farther, to what deity did the Romans pay a more ceremonial respect than to Flora, that bawd of obscenity ? And if any one search the poets for any historical account of the gods, he shall find them all famous for lewd pranks and debaucheries. It is needless to insist upon the miscarriages of others, when the lecherous intrigues of Jove him- self are so notorious, and when the pretendedly chaste Diana so oft uncloaked her modesty to run a hunting after her beloved Endymion. But I will say no more, for I had rather they should be told of their faults by Momus, who was wont formerly to THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 33 sting them with some close reflections, till nettled by his abusive raillery, they kicked him out of heaven for his sauciness of daring to reprove such as were beyond corre6tion : r and now in his banish- ment from heaven he finds but cold entertainment here on earth, nay, is denied all admittance into the court of princes, where notwithstanding my handmaid Flattery finds a most encouraging wel- come : but this petulant monitor being thrust out of doors, the gods can now more freely rant and revel, and take their whole swing of pleasure. Now the beastly Priapus may recreate himself without contradiction in lust and filthiness, now the sly Mercury may, without discovery, go on in his thieveries, and nimble-fingered juggles, the sooty Vulcan may now renew his w r onted custom of making the other gods laugh by his hopping so limpingly, and coming off with so many dry jokes, and biting repartees. Silenus, the old doting lover, to shew his activity, may now dance a frisking jig, and the nymphs be at the same sport naked. The goatish satyrs may make up a merry ball, and Pan, the blind harper may put up his bagpipes, and sing bawdy catches, to which the gods, especially when 34 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. they are almost drunk, shall give a most profound attention. But why would I any farther rip open and expose the weakness of the gods, a weakness so childish and absurd, that no man can at the same time keep his countenance, and make a relation of it ? Now therefore, like Homer's wandering muse, I will take my leave of heaven, and come down again bere below, where we shall find nothing happy, nay, nothing tolerable, without my presence and assistance. And in the first place con- sider how providently nature has took care that in all her works there should be some piquant smack and relish of Folly, for since the Stoics define wisdom to be conducted by reason, and folly nothing else but the being hurried by passion, lest our life should otherwise have been too dull and inactive, that creator, who out of clay first tempered and made us up, put into the composition of our humanity more than a pound of passions to an ounce of reason ; and reason he confined within "C the narrow cells of the brain, whereas he left passions the whole body to range in. Farther, he set up two sturdy champions to stand perpetually on the guard, that reason might THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 35 make no assault, surprise, nor in-road. Anger, which keeps its station in the fortress of the heart, and lust, which like the signs Yirgo and Scorpio, rules the belly and secret members. Against the forces of these two warriors how unable is reason to bear up and withstand, every day's experience does abundantly witness. While let reason be never so importunate in urging and reinforcing her admoni- tions to virtue, yet the passions bear all before them , and by the least offer of curb or restraint grow but more imperious, till reason itself, for quietness sake, is forced to desist from all further remonstrance. But because it seemed expedient that man, who was born for the transaction of business, should have so much wisdom as should fit and capacitate him for the discharge of his duty herein, and yet lest such a measure as is requisite for this purpose might prove too dangerous and fatal, I was advised with for an antidote, who prescribed this infallible recipe of taking a wife, a creature so harmless and silly, and yet so useful and convenient, as might mollify and make pliable the stiffness and morose humour of man. Now that which made Plato doubt under which genus to rank woman, whether among brutes 36 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. or rational creatures, was only meant to denote the extreme stupidness and folly of that sex. A sex so unalterably simple, that for any of them to thrust forward, and reach at the name of wise, is but to make themselves the more remarkable fools, such as endeavour, being but a swimming against the stream, nay, the turning the course of nature, the bare attempting whereof is as extravagant as the effecting of it is impossible. For as it is a trite 1\ proverb, " That an ape will be an ape, though clad l|in purple;" so a woman will be a woman, i.e., a \ \ fool, whatever disguise she takes up. /I And yet there is no reason women should take it amiss to be thus charged ; for if they do but rightly consider they will find it is to Folly they are beholden for those endowments, wherein they so far surpass and excel man. As first, for their unparalleled beauty, by the charm whereof they tyrannize over the greatest tyrants. For what is 1 it but too great a smatch of wisdom that makes men so tawny and thin-skinned, so rough and prickly-bearded, like an emblem of winter or old age, while women have such dainty smooth cheeks, such a low gentle voice, and so pure a complexion, THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 37 as if nature had drawn them for a standing pattern of all symmetry and comeliness ? Beside, what greater or juster aim and ambition have they than to please their husbands ? In order whereunto they garnish themselves with paint, washes, curls, perfumes, and all other mysteries of ornament ; yet after all they become acceptable to them only for their Folly. Wives are always allowed their humour, yet it is only in exchange for gratification! and pleasure, which indeed are but other names iorj Folly. - But now some blood-chilled old men, that are ] more for wine than wenching, will pretend, that in / their opinion the greatest happiness consists in feasting and drinking. Grant it be so, yet certainly in the most luxurious entertainments it is Folly must give the sauce and relish to the daintiest cates and delicacies ; so that if there be no one of the guests naturally fool enough to be played upon by the rest, they must procure some comical buffoon, that by his jokes, and flouts, and blunders shall make the whole company split themselves with laughing. For to what purpose were it to be stuffed and crammed with so many dainty bits, 38 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. savoury dishes, and toothsome rarities, if after all this epicurism of the belly, the eyes, the ears, and the whole mind of man, were not as well foistred and relieved with laughing, jesting, and such like divertisements, which like second courses serve for the promoting of digestion ? And as to all those shooing horns of drunken- ness, the keeping every one his man, the throwing hey -jinks, the filling of bumpers, the drinking two in a hand, the beginning of mistress' healths. And then the roaring out of drunken catches, the calling in a fiddler, the leading out every one his lady to dance, and such Kke riotous pastimes, these were not taught or dictated by any of the wise men of Greece, but of Gotham rather, being my in- vention, and by me prescribed as the best preser- vative of health : each of which, the more ridiculous it is, the more welcome it finds. And indeed to jog sleepingly through the world, in a dumpish melancholy posture cannot properly be said to live, but to be wound up as it were in a winding- sheet before we are dead, and so to be shuffled quick into a grave, and buried alive. But there are yet others perhaps that have no THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 39 gust in this sort of pleasure, but place their great- est content in the enjoyment of friends, telling us that true friendship is to be preferred before alLoth er acquirements. That it is a thing so use- ful ancl^iecessary, as the very elements could not long subsist without a natural combination ; so pleasant that it affords as warm an influence as the sun itself; so honest, if honesty in this case deserve any consideration, that the very philoso- phers have not stuck to place this as one among the rest of their different sentiments of the chiefest good. But what if I make it appear that I also am the main spring and original of this endear- ment ? Yes, I can easily demonstrate it, and that not by crabbed syllogisms, or a crooked and unin- telligible way of arguing, but can make it as the proverb goes, " As plain as the nose on your face." Well then, to scratch and curry one another, to wink at a friend's faults ; nay, to cry up some failings for virtuous and commendable, is not this the next door to the being a fool? When one looking steadfastly in hisnmsi^ess^Suice, admires a mole as much as a beauty spot. When another swears his lady's bad breath is a most redolent 40 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. perfume. And at another time the fond parent hugs the squint-eyed child, and pretends it is rather a becoming glance and winning aspect than any blemish of the eye-sight, what is all this but the very height of Folly ? Folly, I say, that both makes friends and keeps them so. I speak of mortal 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 shall find that they have so much of wisdom, as they have very little of friendship ; nay, nothing of that which is true and hearty. The reason why men make a greater improve- ment in this virtue, is only because they are more credulous and easy natured ; for friends must be of the same humour and inclinations too, or else the league of amity, though made with never so many protestations, will be soon broke. Thus grave and morose men seldom prove fast frienHs ; they are too captious and censorious, and will not bear with one another's infirmities ^ they are as eagle sighted as may be in the espial of others' faults, while they wink upon themselves, and never mind the beam in their own eyes. ^In short, man being by nature THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 41 so prone to frailties, so humoursome and cross- grained, and guilty of so many slips and miscar- riages, there could be no firm friendship contracted, except there be such an allowance made for each others' defaults, which the Greeks term 'Ewj0 a> and we may construe good nature, which is but another word for_ Folly. 1 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 as mope-eyed in judging falsely of all love concerns, and wheedle us into a thinking that we are always in the right ? Thus every Jack sticks to his own Jill ; every tinker esteems his own trull ; and the hob-nailed ' suitor prefers Joan the milk-maid before any of my lady's daughters. These things are true, and are ordinarily laughed at, and yet, however ridiculous they seem, it is hence only that all societies receive their cement and consolidation. J The same which has been said of friendship is much more applicable to a state of marriage, which is but the highest advance and improvement of friendship in the closest bond of union. Good' God ! What frequent divorces, or worse mischief, 3 42 THE r SE OF FOLLY. would oft sadly hr L . except man and wife, were so discreet as to pass rer light occasions of quarrel with laughing, jesting, dissembling, and such like playing the fool ? Nay, how few matches would- go forward, if the hasty lover did but first know how many little tricks of lust and wantonness, and perhaps more gross failings, his coy and seemingly bashful mistress had oft before been guilty of? And how fewer marriages, when consummated, would continue happy, if the husband were not either sottishly insensible of, or did not purposely wink at and pass over the lightness and forward- ness of his good-natured wife ? This peace and quietness is owing to my manage- ment, 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 ^ cuckold and a still house. If the cuckoo sing at the back door, the unthinking cornute takes no notice of the unlucky omen of others' eggs being laid in his own nest, but laughs it over, kisses his dear spouse, and all is well. And indeed it is much better patiently to be such a hen-pecked frigot, than always to be wracked and tortured with the grating surmises of THE PRAISE &* JLLY. 43 arrd-jealousy. 1%. line-, there is no one society, no. one relation iifjn stand in, would be comfortable, or indeed tolerable, without my assis- tance. There could be no right understanding betwixt prince and people, lord and servant, tutor and pupil, friend and friend, man and wife, buyer and seller, or any persons however otherwise related, if they did not cowardly put up small abuses, sneakingly cringe and submit, or after all fawningly scratch and flatter each other. This you 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 any one should agreg, with a friend that is first fallen out with his own judgment ? Or -is it probable he should be any way pleasing to another, who is a perpetual pla.gue and trouble to himself? This is such a paradox that none can be so mad as to maintain. Well, but if I am excluded and barred out, every man would be so far from being able to bear with others, that he would be burthensome to himself, and conse- quently incapable of any ease or satisfaction. Nature, that toward some of her products plays the 44 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. step-mother rather than the indulgent parent, has endowed some men with that unhappy peevishness of disposition, as to nauseate and dislike whatever is their own, and much admire what belongs to other persons, so as they cannot in any wise enjoy what their birth or fortunes have bestowed upon them. For what grace is there in the greatest beauty, if it be always clouded with frowns and sulliness ? Or what vigour in youth, if it be harassed with a pettish, dogged, waspish, ill humour ? None, sure. Nor indeed can there be any creditable acquire- ment of ourselves in any one station of life, but we should sink without rescue into misery and despair, if we were not buoyed up and supported by self- love, which is but the elder sister, as it were, of Folly, and her own constant friend and assistant. I For what is or can be, more silly than to be lovers and admirers of ourselves ? And yet if it were not so, there will be no relish to any of our words or actions. Take away this one property of a fool, and the orator shall become as dumb and silent as the pulpit he stands in ; the musician shall hang up his untouched instruments on the wall ; the completest THE PRAISE OF POLL Y. 45 actors shall be Hissed off the stage ; the poet shall be burlesqued with his own doggrel rhymes ; the painter shall himself vanish into an imaginary land- scape ; and the physician shall want food more than his patients do physic. In short, without self-love, instead of beautiful, you shall think yourself an old beldam of fourscore ; instead of youthful, you shall seem just dropping into the grave ; instead of eloquent, a mere stammerer ; and in lieu of gentle and complaisant, you shall appear like a downright country clown ; it being so necessary that every one should think well of himself before he can expect the good opinion of others. Finally, when it is the main and essential part of happiness to desire to be no other than what we already are. This expedient is again wholly owing to self-love, which so flushes men with a good con- ceit of their own, that no one repents of his shape, of his wit, of his education, or of his country. So as the dirty half-drowned Hollander would not re- move into the pleasant plains of Italy, the rude Thracian would not change his boggy soil for the best seat in Athens, nor the brutish Scythian quit his thorny deserts to become an inhabitant of the 46 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. Fortunate Islands. And oh the incomparable contri- vance of nature, who has ordered all things in so even a method that wherever she has been less bountiful in her gifts, there she makes it up with a larger dose of self-love, which supplies the former defects, and makes all even. x To enlarge farther, I may well presume to aver, that there are no considerable exploits performed, no useful arts invented, but what I am the respec- tive author and manager of. As first, what is more fo / lofty and heroical than war.^ And yet, what is more foolish than for some petty, trivial affront, to take such a revenge as both sides shall be sure to be losers, and where the quarrel must be decided at the price of so many limbs and lives ? And when they come to an engagement, what service can be done by such pale-faced students, as by drudging at the oars of wisdom, have spent all their strength and activity ? No, the only use is of blunt sturdy fellows that have little of wit, and so the more of re- solution. Except you would make a soldier of such another Demosthenes as threw down his arms when he came within sight of the enemy, and lost that credit in the camp which he gained in the pulpit. 1 the-^bedy^quarrelled with the belly, resolving no / longer to continue her drudging caterers. Till by the penance they thought thus in revenge to impose, they soon found their own strength so far 7 HE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 53 diminished, that paying the cost of experiencing a mistake, they willingly returned to their respective duties. Thus when the rabble of Athens murmured at the exaction of the magistrates, Themistocles satis- fied them with such another tale of the fox 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, says the fox, if these which are almost glutted be frighted off, there will come 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 had such magistrates removed as they complained of for extortion, yet their successors would certainly be worse. With what highest advances of policy could Sertorius have kept the Barbarians so well in awe, as by a white hart, which he pretended was pre- sented to him by Diana, and brought him intelli- gence of all his enemies' designs ? What was Lycurgus his grand argument for demonstrating the force of education, but only the bringing out two 54 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. whelps of the same bitch, differently brought up, and placing before them a dish, and a live hare. The one, that had been bred to hunting, ran after the game ; while the other, whose kennel had been a kitchen, presently fell a licking the platter. Thus the before-mentioned Sertorius made his soldiers sensible that wit and contrivance would do more than bare strength, by setting a couple of men to the plucking off two horses' tails. The first pulling at all in one handful, tugged in vain ; while the other, though much the weaker, snatching off one by one, soon performed his appointed task. Instances of like nature are Minos and king Numa,iboth which fooled the people into obedience by a mere cheat and juggle. j The first by pre- tending he was advised by Jupiter, the latter by making the vulgar believe he had the goddess ^Egeria assistant to him in all debates and transac- tions. And indeed it is by such wheedles that the common people are 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 impracticable tenets of Socrates ? No, these would have been too straight THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 55 and galling, there not being allowance enough made for the infirmities of the people. To pass to another head, what was it made the Decii so forward to offer themselves up as a sacri- fice for an atonement to the angry gods, to rescue and stipulate for their indebted country ? What made Curtius, on a like occasion so desperately to throw away his life, but only vain -glory, that is condemned, and unanimously voted for a main branch of Folly by all wise men ? What is more ' unreasonable and foppish, say they, than for any man, out of ambition to some office, to v bow, to scrape and cringe to the gaping rabble, to purchase their favourby bribes and donatives, to have their l names cried up in the streets, to be carried about as it were for a fine sight upon the shoulders of the crowd, to have their effigies carved in brass, and f put up in the market place for a monument of their/ popularity ? Add to this, the affectation of new titles and dis- tinctive badges of honour ; nay, the very deifying of such as were the most bloody tyrants, These are so extremely ridiculous, that there is need of \j more than one Democritus to laugh at them. And 56 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. yet hence only have been occasioned those memor- able achievements of heroes, that have so much employed the pens of many laborious writers. It is Folly that, in a variety of guise, governs cities, appoints magistrates, and supports judicatures. And, in short, makes the whole course of man's life a mere children's play, and worse than push-pin diversion. The invention of all arts and sciences are likewise owing to the same cause. For what sedentary, thoughtful men would have beat their brains in the search of new and unheard- of- <-/mysteries, if not egged on by the bubbling hopes of credit and reputation ? j They think a little glitter- ing flash of vain-glory is a sufficient reward for all their sweat, and toil, and tedious drudgery, while >they that are supposedly more foolish, reap advan- tage of the others' labours. /xAnd now since I have made good my title to valour and industry, what if I challenge an equal share of wisdom ? How ! this, you will say, is absurd and contradictory ; the east and west may as soon shake hands as Folly and Wisdom be reconciled. Well, but have a little patience and I will warrant you I will make out my claim. First then, if THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 57 wisdom, as must be confessed, is no more than a readiness of doing good, and an expedite method of becoming serviceable to the world, to whom does this virtue more properly belong ? To the wise man. who partly out of modesty, partly out of cowardice, can proceed resolutely in no attempt. Or to the fool, that goes hand over head, leaps before he looks, and so ventures through the most hazardous undertaking without any sense or pros- pect of danger ? In the undertaking any enterprize the wise man shall run to consult with his books, and daze him- self with poring upon musty authors, while the dispatchful fool shall rush bluntly on, and have done the business, while the other is thinking of it. For the two greatest lets and impediments to the issue of any performance are modesty, which casts a mist before men's eyes ; and fear, which makes them shrink back, and recede from any proposal. Both these are banished and cashiered by Folly, and in their stead such a habit of fool-hardiness introduced, as mightily contributes to the success of all enterprizes. Farther, if you will have wisdom taken in the other sense, of being a right judgment 4 58 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. of things, you snail see how short wise men fall of it in this acceptation. // First, then, it is certain that all things, like so many Januses, carry a double face, or rather bear a false aspect, most things being really in them- selves far different from what they are in appear- ance to others. So as that which at first blush proves alive, is in truth dead ; and that 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, and innocent for what is hurtful and pernicious. In short, if we change the tables, all things are found placed in a quite different posture from what just before they appeared to r 'and in. If this seem too darkly and unintelligibly expressed, I will explain it by the familiar instance of some great king or prince, whom every one shall suppose to swim in a luxury of wealth, and to be a powerful lord and master. When, alas, on the one Land he has poverty of spirit enough to make him THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 59 a mere bewar, and on the other side he is worse OO ' than a galley-slave to his own lusts and passions. If I had a mind farther to expatiate, I could enlarge upon several instances of like nature, but this one may at present suffice. Well, but what is the meaning, will some say, of all this ? Why, observe the application. If any one in a play-house be so impertinent and rude as to rifle the actors of their borrowed clothes, make them lay down the character assumed, and force them to return to their naked selves, would not such a one wholly discompose and spoil the entertainment ? And would he not deserve to be hissed and thrown stones at till the pragmatical fool could learn better manners ? For by such a disturbance the whole scene will be altered. Such as acted the men will perhaps appear to be women. He that was dressed up for a young brisk lover, will be found a rough old fellow. And he that represented a king, will remain but a mean ordinary serving-man, j The laying things thus open is marring all the sport, which consists only in counterfeit and disguise^ Now the world is nothing else but such another 60 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. comedy, where every one in the tire-room is first habited suitably to the part he is to act. And as it is successively their turn, out they come on the stage, where he that now personates a prince, shall in another part of the same play alter his dress, and become a beggar, all things being in a mask and particular disguise, or o^ferwise the play could never be presented. Now if there should arise any starched, formal don, that would point at the several actors, and tell how this, that seems a petty god, is in truth worse than a brute, being made captive to the tyranny of passion. That the other, who bears the character of a king, is indeed the most slavish of serving-men, in being subject to the mastership of lust and sensuality. That a third, who vaunts so much of his pedigree, is no better than a bastard for degenerating from virtue, which ought to be of greatest consideration in heraldry, and so shall go on in exposing all the rest. Would not any one think such a person quite frantic, and ripe for bedlam ? For as nothing is more silly than preposterous wisdom, so is there nothing more indiscreet than an unreasonable reproof. And therefore he THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 61 is to be hooted out of all society that will not be pliable, conformable, and willing to suit his humour with other men's, remembering the law of clubs and meetings, that he who will not do as the rest must get him out of the company. And it is certainly one great degree of wisdom for every one to consflfer that he is but a man, and therefore he should not pitch his soaring thoughts beyond the level of mortality, but imp the wings of his towering ambition, and obligingly submit and condescend to the weakness of others, it being many times a piece of complaisance to go out of the road for company's sake. No, say you, this is a grand piece of Folly. True, but yet all our living is no more than such kind of fooling. Which though it may seem harsh to assert, yet it is not so strange as true. For the better making it out it might perhaps be requisite to invoke the aid of the muses, to whom the poets devoutly apply themselves upon far more slender occasions. Come then and assist, ye Heliconian lasses, while I attempt to prove that there is no method for an arrival at wisdom, and 62 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. consequently no track to the goal of happiness, without the instructions and directions of Folly. And here, in the first place it has been already acknowledged, that all the passions are listed under my regiment. Since this is resolved to be the only distinction betwixt a wise man and a fool, that this latter is governed by passion, the other x guided by reason. And therefore the Stoics look upon passions no other than as the infection and malady of the soul that disorders the constitution of the whole man, and by putting the spirits into a feverish ferment many times occasion some mortal distemper. And yet these, however decried, are not only our tutors to instruct us towards the attainment of wisdom, but even bolden us likewise, and spur us on to a quicker dispatch of all our undertakings. 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 un- man him, or else transforming him into some fabulous deity that never was, nor ever will beJj Nay, to speak more plain, it is but the making him t- THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 63 a mere statue, immoveable, senseless, and altogether inactive. And if this be their wise man, let them take him to themselves, and remove him into Plato'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 all the dictates of common sense ? That should have no more power of love or pity than a block or stone, that remains heedless of all dangers ? That thinks he can never mistake, but can foresee all contingencies at the greatest distance, and make provision for the worst presages ? That feeds upon himself and his own thoughts, that monopolises health, wealth, power, dignity, and all to himself? That loves no man, nor is beloved of any ? That has the impudence to tax even divine providence of ill contrivance, and proudly grudges, nay, tramples under foot all other men'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 be willing to serve under such a commander ? Or what woman would be content with such a do -little husband ? Who would invite such a guest ? Or what servant would 64 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. be retained by such a master ? The most illiterate mechanic would in all respects be a more acceptable man, who would be frolicsome with his wife, free with his friends, jovial at a feast, pliable in converse, and obliging to all company. But I am tired out with this part of my subject, and so must pass to some other topics. / And now were any one placed on that tower, I from whence Jove is fancied by the poets to survey the world, he would all around discern how many grievances and calamities our whole life is on every side encompassed with. How unclean our birth, how troublesome our tendance in the cradle, how liable our childhood is to a thousand misfortunes, how toilsome and full of drudgery our riper years, how heavy and uncomfortable our old age, and lastly, how unwelcome the unavoidableness of death. Farther, in every course of life how many wracks there may be of torturing diseases, how many un- happy accidents may casually occur, how many un- expected disasters may arise, and what strange alterations may one moment produce ? Not to mention such miseries as men are mutually the cause of, as poverty, imprisonment, slander, re- THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 65 proach, revenge, treachery, malice, cosenage, \ deceit, and so many more, as to reckon them all | would be as puzzling arithmetic as the numbering I of the sands. How mankind became environed with such hard circumstances, or what deity imposed these plagues, as a penance on rebellious mortals, I am not now at leisure to enquire. ^ But whoever seriously takes them into consideration must needs commend the valour of the Milesian virgins, who voluntarily killed themselves to get rid of a troublesome world. And how many wise men have taken the same course of becoming their own executioners. Among whom, not to mention Diogenes, Xenocrates, Cato, Cassius, Brutus, and other heroes. The self-denying Chiron is never enough to be commended ; who, when he was offered by Apollo the privilege of being exempted from death, and living on to the world's end, he refused the enticing proposal, as deservedly thinking it a punishment rather than a reward.; N 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 plaster up the 66 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. decayed image of mankind. I therefore come and stand in this gap of danger, and prevent farther mischief; partly by ignorance, partly by inadver- tence. By the oblivion of whatever would be grating to remember, and the hopes of whatever may be grateful to expect, together palliating all griefs with an intermixture of pleasure ; whereby I make men so far from being weary of their lives, that when their thread is spun to its full length, they are yet unwilling to die, and mighty hardly brought to take their last farewell of their friends. Thus some decrepit old fellows, 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 meat but what is tender enough to suck, that have more hair on their beard than they have on their head, and go sto0ping^ toward the dust they must shortly return to. Whose skin seems already drest into parchment, and their bones already dried to a skeleton. These shadows of men shall be wonderful ambitious of living longer, and therefore fence off the attacks of death with all imaginable sleights and impostures. One shall new dye his grey hairs, for fear their colour should THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 67 betray his age. Another shall spruce himself up in a light periwig. A third shall repair the loss of his teeth with an ivory set. And a fourth perhaps shall fall deeply in love with a young girl, and accordingly court her with as much of gaiety and briskness as the liveliest spark in the whole town. And we cannot but know, that for an old man to marry a young wife without a portion, to be a cooler to other men's lust, is grown so common, that it is become the a-la-mode of the times. And what is yet more comical, you shall have some wrinkled old women, whose very looks are a sufficient antidote to lechery, that shall be canting out, " Ah, life is a sweet thing," and so run a cater- wauling. And to set themselves off the better, they shall paint and daub their faces, always stand a 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 decoy- ing hot-blooded suitors. And in the meanwhile, however they are laughed at, they enj oy themselves to the full, live up to their hearts' desire, and want for nothing that may complete their happiness. 68 THE PRAISE OF POLL Y. As for those that think them herein so ridiculous, I would have them give an ingenuous answer to this one query, whether if folly or hanging were left to their choice, 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 ? Their ill word is no injury to fools, who are either altogether insensible of any affront, or at least lay it not much to heart. If they were knocked on the head, or had their brains dashed out, they would have some cause to complain ; but alas, slander, calumny, and disgrace, are no other way injurious than as they are interpreted. Nor otherwise evil, than as they are thought to be so. What harm is it then if all persons deride and scoff you, if you bear but up in your own thoughts, and be yourself thoroughly conceited of your deserts ? And prithee, why should it be thought any scandal to be a fool, since the being so is one part of our nature and essence ; and as so, our not being wise can no more reasonably be imputed as a fault, than it would be proper to laugh at a man because he cannot fly in the air like birds and fowls ; be- cause he goes not on all four as beasts of the field ; 1 i THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 69 because he does not wear a pair of visible horns as a crest on his forehead, like bulls or stags. By the same figure we may call a horse unhappy, because he was never taught his grammar ; and an ox miserable, for that he never learnt to fence ; but sure as a horse for not knowing a letter is never- theless valuable, so a man, for being a fool, is never the more unfortunate, it being by nature and pro- vidence so ordained for each. Ay, but say our patrons of wisdom, the know- ledge of arts and sciences is purposely attainable by men, that the defect of natural parts may be supplied 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 man as it were by halves, to be after- ward polished and refined by his own industry, in the attainment of such sciences as the Egyptians feigned were invented by their god Theuth, as a sure plague and punishment to mankind, being so far from augmenting their happiness, that they do not answer that end they were first designed for, 70 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. which, was the improvement of memory, as Plato in his Phaedrus does wittily observe. In the first golden age of the world there was no need of these perplexities. There was then no other sort of learning but what was naturally col- lected from every man's common sense, improved & jc^ by an easy experience. What use could there have o ^ been of grammar, when all men spoke the same mother-tongue, and aimed at no higher pitch of oratory, than barely to be understood by each other ? What need of logic, when they were too \vise to enter into any dispute ? Or what occasion . for rhetoric, where no difference arose to require any laborious decision ? And as little reason had they to be tied up by any laws, since the dictates of nature and common morality were restraint and obligation sufficient. And as to all the mysteries of providence, they made them rather the object of their wonder, than their curiosity. And therefore were not so pre- sumptuous as to dive into the depths of nature, to labour for the solving all phenomena in astronomy, or to rack their brains in the splitting of entities ; and unfolding the nicest speculations, judging it a *\ f THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 71 crime for any man to aim at what is put beyond the reach of his shallow apprehension. Thus was ignorance, in the infancy of the world, as much the parent of happiness as it has been since ofdevotion. But as soon as - the golden age began by degrees to degenerate into more drossy metals, then were arts likewise invented. Yet at first but few in number, and those rarely understood, till in farther process of time the superstition of the Chaldeans, and the curiosity of | the Grecians, spawned so many subtleties, that now it is scarce the w r ork of an age to be thoroughly acquainted with all the criticisms in grammar only. And among all the several Arts, those are pro- portionably most esteemed that come nearest to weakness and fo]]y. For thus divines may bite their nails, and naturalists may blow their fingers, astrologers may know their own fortune is to be poor, and the logician may shut his fist and grasp the wind. While all these hard-named fellows cannot make So great a figure as a single quack. And in this profession, those that have most confi- dence, though the least skill, shall be sure of the 72 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. greatest custom. And indeed this whole art as it is now practised, is but one incorporated compound of craft and imposture. Next to the physician comes he, who perhaps will commence a suit with me for not being placed before him, I mean the lawyer. Who is so silly as to be ignoramus to a proverb, and yet by such are all difficulties resolved, all controversies determined, and all affairs managed so much to their own ad- vantage, that they get those estates to themselves which they are ^einployedtorecover for their clients. While the poor divine in 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 to purchase a new one. / As those arts therefore are most advantageous to their respective professors which are farthest distant from wisdom,^ so are those persons incom- parably most happy that have least to do with any at all, but jog on in the common road of nature, which will never mislead us, except we voluntarily leap over those boundaries which she has cautiously set to our finite beings.J Nature glitters most in her own plain, homely garb, and then gives the : I 1 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 73 greatest lustre when she is unsullied from all arti- ficial garnish. Thus if we enquire into the state of all dumb creatures, we shall find those fare best that are left to nature's conduct. As to instance in bees, what is more to be admired than the industry and con- trivance of these little animals ? What architect could ever form so curious a structure as they give a model of in their inimitable combs ? What king- dom can be governed with better discipline than they exactly observe in their respective hives ? While the horse, by turning a rebel to nature and becoming a slave to man, undergoes the wors of tyranny. He is sometimes spurred on to battl so long till he draws his guts after him for trappin and at last falls down, and bites the ground instea of grass. Not to mention the penalty of his jaw being curbed, his tail docked, his back wrung, his sides spur-galled, his close imprisonment in a stable, his rapshin and fetters when he runs a grass, and a great many other plagues, which he might have avoided, if he had kept to that first station of freedom which nature placed him in. How much more desirable is the unconfined 5 74 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. range of flies and birds, who living by instinct, would want nothing to complete their happiness, if some well-employed Domitian would not persecute the former, nor the sly fowler lay snares and gins for the entrapping of the other ? And if young birds, before their unfledged wings can carry them from their nests, are caught, and pent up in a cage, for the being taught to sing, or whistle, all their new tunes make not half so sweet music as their wild notes, and natural melody. [ So much does that which is but rough-drawn by nature surpass and excel all the additional paint and varnish of art. . And we cannot sure but commend and admire that Pythagorean cock, which as Lucian relates, had been successively a man, a woman, a prince, a subject, a fish, a horse, and a frog. After all his experience, he summed up his judgment in this censure, that man was the most wretched and de- plorable of all creatures, all other patiently grazing within the enclosures of nature, while man only broke out, and strayed beyond those safer limits, which he was justly confined to. And Gryllus is to be adjudged wiser than the THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 75 much-counselling Ulysses, in as much as when by the enchantment of Circe he had been turned into a hog, he would not lay down his swinishnsss, nor forsake his beloved sty, to run the peril of a hazardous voyage. For a further confirmation whereof I have the authority of Homer, that captain of all poetry, who, as he gives to mankind in general, the epithet of wretched and unhappy so he bestows in particular upon Ulysses the title of miserable, which he never attributes to Paris Ajax, Achilles, or any other of the commanders and that for this reason, because Ulysses was more crafty, cautious, and wise, than any of the rest. As those therefore fall shortest of happiness that , reach highest at wisdom, meeting with the greater repulse for soaring beyond the boundaries of their nature, and without remembering themselves to be but men, like the fallen angels, daring them to vie with Omnipotence, and giant-like scale heaven with the engines of their own brain. /So are those most exalted in the road of bliss that degenerate nearest into brutes, and quietly divest themselves of all use and exercise of reason. And this we can prove by a familiar instance. 76 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. As namely, can there be any one sort of men that enjoy themselves, better than those which we call idiots, changelings, fools and naturals ? It may perhaps sound harsh, but upon due consideration it will be found abundantly true, that these persons in all circumstances fare best, and live most com- fortably. LAs first, they are void of all fear, which is a very great privilege to be exempted from^ They are troubled with no remorse, nor pricks of conscience. They are jnoJL frighted with anv_bug^ bear stories of another world. They startle not at the fancied appearance of ghosts, or apparitions. They are not wracked with the dread of impending mischiefs, nor bandied with the hopes of any ex- pected enjoyments.* In short, they are unassaulted by all those legions of cares that war against the quiet of rational souls. They are ashamed of nothing, fear no man, banish the uneasiness of am- bition, envy, and love. And to add the reversion ! of a future happiness to the enjoyment of a present me, they have no sin neither to answer for ; divines unanimously maintaining, that a gross and una- voidable ignorance does not only extenuate and THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 77 abate from the aggravation, but wholly expiate the guilt of any immorality. Come now then as many of you as challenge the respect of being accounted wise, ingenuously confess how many insurrections of rebellious thoughts, and pangs of a labouring mind, ye are perpetually thrown and tortured with. Reckon up all those inconveniences that you are unavoidably subject to, and then tell me whether fools, by being exempted from all those embroilments, are not infinitely more free and_happy than yourselves ? Add to this, that fools do not barely laugh, and sing, and play the good-fellow alone to themselves. But as it is the nature of good to be communicative, so they impart their mirth to others, by making sport for the whole company they are at any time engaged in, as if providence purposely designed them for an antidote to melancholy. Whereby they make all persons so fond of their society, that they are welcomed to all places, hugged, caressed, and defended, a liberty given them of saying or doing anything. So well beloved, that none dares to offer them the least injury ; nay, the most raven- ous beasts of prey will pass them by untouched, 78 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. as if by instinct they were warned that such innocence ought to receive no hurt. Farther, their converse is so acceptable in the court of princes, that few kings will banquet, walk, or take any other diversion, without their attend- ance ; nay, and had much rather have their company, than that of their gravest counsellors, whom they maintain more for fashion-sake than good-will. Nor is it so strange that these fools should be preferred before graver politicians, since these last, by their harsh, sour advice, and ill- timing the truth, are fit only to put a prince out of the humour, while the others laugh, and talk, and joke, without any danger of disobliging. It is one farther very commendable property of fools, that they always speak the truth, than which there is nothing more noble and heroical. For so, though Plato relate it as a sentence of Alcibiades, that in the sea of drunkenness truth swims uppermost, and so wine is the only teller of truth, yet this character may more justly be assumed by me, as I can make good from the authority of Euripides, who lays down this as an I 1 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 79 axiom, "Children and fools always speak the// truth." Whatever the fool has in his heart he betrays it in his face ; or what is more notifying, discovers iti by his words. While the wise man, as Euripides observes, carries a double tongue ; the one to speak what may be said, the other what ought to be. The one what truth, the other what the 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 be black. Like the satyr at his porridge, blowing hot and cold at the same breath ; in his lips professing one thing, when in his heart he means another. Furthermore, princes in their greatest splendour seem upon this account unhappy, in that they miss the advantage of being told the truth, and are shammed off by a parcel of insinuating courtiers, that acquit themselves as flatterers more than as friends. But some will perchance object, that princes do not love to hear the truth, and therefore wise men must be very cautious how they behave themselves before them, lest they should take too 80 I HE PRAISE OF FOLLY. great a liberty in speaking what is true, rather than what is acceptable. This must be confessed, truth indeed is seldom palatable to the ears of kings. Yet fools have so great a privilege as to have free leave, not only to speak bare truths, but the most bitter ones too. So as the same reproof, which, had it come from the mouth of a wise man, would have cost him his head, being blurted out by a fool, is not only par- doned, but well taken, and rewarded. (. For truth has naturally a mixture of pleasure, if it carry with it nothing of offence to the person whom it is ap- plied to ; and the happy knack of ordering it so is bestowed only on fools. 'Tis for the* same reason that this sort of men are more fondly beloved by women, who like their taking them about, and playing with them, though never so boisterously. Pretending to take that only in jest, which they would have to be meant in earnest, as that sex is very ingenious in palliating, and dissembling the bent of their foolish inclinations. But to return. An additional happiness of these fools appears farther in this, that when they have run merrily on to their last stage of life, they r lHE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 81 neither find any fear nor feel any pain to die, but march contentedly to the other world, where their company sure must be as acceptable as it was here upon earth. Let us draw now a comparison between the dition of a fool and that of a wise man, and see how infinitely the one outweighs the other. Give me any instance, then, of a man as wise you can fancy him possible to be, that has spent all his younger years in poring upon books, and trudging after learning, in the pursuit whereof he squanders away the pleasantest time of his life in watching, sweat, and fasting. And in his latter days he never tastes one mouthful of delight, but is always stingy, poor, dejected, melancholy, burthensome to himself,, and unwelcome to others. Pale, lean, thin -jawed, sickly, contracting by his sedentariness such hurtful distempers as bring him to an untimely death, like roses plucked before they shatter. Thus have you the draught of a wise man's happiness, more the object of a com- miserating pity, than of an ambitioning envy. But now again come the croaking Stoics, and tell me in mood and figure, that nothing is more 82 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. miserable than the being mad. But the being a fool is the being mad, therefore there is nothing more miserable than the being a fool. Alas, this is but a fallacy, the discovery whereof solves the force of the whole syllogism. Well, then, they argue subtlely, 'tis true ; but as Socrates in Plato makes two Venuses and two Cupids, and shows how their actions and properties ought not to be confounded, so these disputants, if they had not been mad themselves, should have distinguished between a double madness in others. And there is certainly a great difference in the nature as well as in the degrees of them, and they are not both equally scandalous ; for Horace seems to take delight in one sort, when he says Does welcome frenzy make me thus mistake ? And Plato in his Phsedon ranks the madness of poets, of prophets, and of lovers among those properties which conduce to a happy life. And Virgil, in the sixth ^Eneid, gives this epithet to his industrious ^Eneas : If you will proceed to these your mad attempts. And indeed there is a two-fold sort of madness. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 83 The one that which the furies bring from hell ; those that are herewith possessed are hurried on to wars and contentions, by an inexhaustible thirst of power and riches, inflamed to some infamous and unlawful lust, enraged to act the parricide, seduced to become guilty of incest, sacrilege, or some other of those crimson-dyed crimes ; or, finally, to be so pricked in conscience as to be lashed and stung with the whips and snakes of grief and remorse. r milk so well as when they are gently stroked, would part with less if they knew more, their bounty proceeding only from a mis- take of charity. Now if any grave wise man should stand up, and .unseasonably speak the truth, telling every one that a^gious life is the only way of securing a happy death ; tKaTtfie best title to a pardon of our sins is purchased by a hearty abhorrence of our guilt, and sincere resolutions of amendment ; that the 96 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. Xbest devotion which can be paid to any saints is to imitate them in their exemplary life. If he should proceed thus to inform them of their several mis- takes, there would be quite another estimate put upon tears, watchings, masses, fastings, and other severities, which before were so much prized, as persons will now be vexed to lose that satisfaction they formerly found in them. In the same predicament of fools are to be ranked such, as while they are yet living, and in good health, take so great a care how they shall be buried when they die, that they solemnly appoint how many torches, how many escutcheons, how many gloves to be given, and how many mourners they will have at their funeral. As if they thought they themselves in their coffins could be sensible of what respect was paid to their corpse. Or as if they doubted they should rest a whit the less quiet in the grave if they were with less state and pomp ^interred. Now though I am in so great haste, as I would not willingly be stopped or detained, yet I cannot pass by without bestowing some remarks upon another sort of fools ; who, though their first des- ! t i a THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 97 cent was perhaps no better than from a tapster or tinker, yet highly value themselves upon their birth and parentage. One fetches his pedigree from ./Eneas, another from Brute, a third from king Arthur. They hang up their ancestors' worm-eaten pictures as records of antiquity, and keep a long list of their predecessors, with an account of all their offices and titles, while they themselves are but transcripts of their forefathers' dumb statues, and degenerate even into those very beasts which they carry in their coat of arms as ensigns of their nobility. And yet by a strong presumption of their birth and quality, they live not only the most pleasant and unconcerned themselves, but there are not wanting others too who cry up these brutes almost equal to the gods. But why should I dwell upon one or two in- stances of Folly, when there are so many of like nature. Conceitedness and self-love making many by strength of Fancy believe themselves happy, when otherwise they are really wretched and despicable. Thus the most ape-faced, ugliest fellow in the whole town, shall think himself a mirror of beauty. Another shall be so proud of 98 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. his parts, 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 could outdo Euclid himself. A third shall admire himself for a ravishing musician, though he have no more skill in the handling of any instrument than a pig play- ing on the organs. And another that rattles in the throat as hoarse as a cock crows, shall he proud of his voice, and think he sings like a nightingale. There is another very pleasant sort of madness, whereby persons assume to themselves whatever of accomplishment they discern in others. Thus the happy rich churl in Seneca, who had so short a memory, as he could not tell the least story with- out a servant standing by to prompt him, and was at the same time so weak that he could scarce go upright ; yet he thought he might adventure to^ accept a challenge to a duel, because he kept at home some lusty, sturdy fellows, whose strength he relied upon instead of his own. It is almost needless to insist upon the several professors of arts and sciences, who are all so egre- giously conceited, that they would sooner give up their title to an estate in lands, than part with the THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 99 reversion of their wits. Among these, more especi- ally stage-players, musicians, orators, and poets, each of which, the more of duncery they have, and the more of pride, the greater is their ambition. And how notoriously soever dull they be, they meet with their admirers ; nay, the more silly they are the higher they are extolled. Folly, as we have before intimated, never failing of respect and esteem. If therefore every one, the more ignorant he is, the greater satisfaction he is to himself, and the more commended by others, to what purpose is it to sweat and toil in the pursuit of true learning, which shall cost so many gripes and pangs of the brain to acquire, and when obtained, shall only make the laborious student more uneasy to him- self, and less acceptable to others ? As nature in her dispensation of coriceitedness has dealt with private persons, so has she given a particular smatch of self-love to each country and nation. Upon this account it is that the English challenge the prerogative of having the most hand- some women, of the being most accomplished in the skill of music, and of keeping the best tables. The Scotch brag of their gentility, and pretend the 100 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. genius of their native soil inclines them to be good disputants. The French think themselves remark- able for complaisance and good breeding. The Sorbonists of Paris pretend before any others to have made the greatest proficiency in polemic divi- nity. The Italians value themselves for learning and eloquence. And, like the Grecians of old, account all the world barbarians in respect of them- selves ; to which piece of vanity the inhabitants of Rome are more especially addicted, pretending themselves to be owners of all those heroic virtues, which their city so many ages since was deservedly famous for. The Venetians stand upon their birth and pedigree. The Grecians pride themselves in having been the first inventors of most arts, and in their country being famed for the product of so many eminent philosophers, The Turks, and all the other refuse of Mahometism, pretend they profess the only true religion, and laugh at all Christians for superstitious, narrow-souled fools. The Jews to' this day expect their Messias as devoutly as they believe in their first prophet Moses. The Spaniards challenge the repute of being accounted good soldiers. And the Germans are noted for their tall, THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 101 proper stature, and for their skill in magic. But not to mention any more, I suppose you are already convinced how great an improvement and addition to the happiness of human life is occasioned by self-love. Next step to which is flattery : for as self-love is nothing but the coaxing up of ourselves, so the same currying and humouring , of others is termed flattery. Flattery, it is true, is now looked upon as a $ce*' it write what comes next at a venture, knowing that the more silly their composures are, the moiv they will be bought up by the greater number of readers, who are fools and blockheads. / T-' V. y / ' y 4% 124 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. And if they hap to be condemned by some few judicious persons, it is an easy matter by clamour to drown their censure, and to silence them by urging the more numerous commendations of - others. They are^yet the wisest who transcribe whole discourses from others, and then reprint them as their own. By doing so they mak a cheap and easy seizure to themselves of that reputation which cost the first author so much time and trouble to procure. If they are at any time pricked a little in conscience for fear of discovery, they feed them- selves however with this hope, that if they be at ;. last found plagiaries, yet at least for some time they have the credit of passing for the genuine authors. It is pleasant to see how all these several writers are puffed up with the least blast of applause, espe- cially if they come to the honour of being pointed at as they walk along the streets, when their several pieces are laid open upon every bookseller's stall, when their names are embossed in a different char- acter upon the title-page, sometime only with the two first letters, and sometime with fictious cramp I 0} THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 125 terms, which few shall understand the meaning of. And of those that do, all shall not agree in their verdict of the performance. Some censuring, others approving it, men's judgments being as different as their palates, that being toothsome to one which is unsavoury and nauseous to another. Though it is a sneaking piece of cowardice for authors itcT put feigned names to their works, as if, like bastards of their brain, they were afraid to own them. Thus one styles himself Telemachus, another Stelenus, a third Polycrates, another Thrasymachus, and so on. By the same liberty we may ransack the whole alphabet, and jumble together any letters that come next to hand. It is farther very pleasant when these coxcombs employ their pens in writing congratulatory epistles, poems, and panegyricks, upon each other, wherein one shall be complimented with the title of Alcseus, another shall be charactered for the incomparable Callimachus ; this shall be commended for a com- pleter orator than Tully himself ; a fourth shall be told by his fellow-fool that the divine Plato comes short of him for a philosophic soul. Sometime again they take up the cudgels, and 126 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. challenge out an antagonist, and so get a name by a combat at dispute and controversy, wbile the unwary readers draw sides according to their different judgments. The longer the quarrel holds the more irreconcilable it grows ; and when both parties are weary, they each pretend themselves the conquerors, 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 my assistance, are so flushed with a conceit of their own greatness, that they prefer the solving of a syllogism before the sacking of Carthage ; and upon the defeat of a poor objection carry themselves more triumphant than the most victorious Scipio. Nay, even the learned and more judicious, that have wit enough to laugh at the other's folly, are very much beholden to my goodness ; which, except ingratitude have drowned their ingenuity, they must be ready upon all occasions to confess. Among these I suppose the lawyers will shuffle in for precedence, and they of all men have the greatest conceit of their own abilities. They will THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 127 argue as confidentially as if they spoke gospel instead of law ; they will cite you six hundred several precedents, though not one of them come near to the case in hand. They will 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 greates^""* slavery imaginable; always accounting that the best plea which they have took most pains for. To these, as bearing great resemblance to them, may be added Logicians and Sophisters, fellows that talk as much by rote as a parrot ; who shall run down a whole gossiping of old women, nay, silence the very noise of a belfry, with louder clappers than those of the steeple. And if their unappeasable clamorousness were their only fault it would admit of some excuse ; but they are at the same time so fierce and quarrelsome, that they will wrangle bloodily for the least trifle, and be so over intent and eager, that they many times lose their game in the chase and fright away that truth they are hunting for. Yet self-conceit makes these nimble disputants such doughty champions, that 128 r IHE PRAISE OF FOLLY. armed with three or four close-linked syllogisms 9 they shall enter the lists with the greatest masters of reason, and not question the foiling of them in an irresistible baffle. Nay, their obstinacy makes them so confident of their being in the right, that all the arguments in the world shall never f convince them to the contrary. / Next to these come the Philosophers in their long beards and short cloaks, who esteem them- selves the only favourites of wisdom, and look upon the rest of mankind as the dirt and rubbish of the creation. Yet these men's happiness is only a frantic craziness of brain ; they build castles in the air, and infinite worlds in a vacuum. They will give you to a hair's breadth the dimensions of the sun, moon, and stars, as easily as they would do that of a flaggon or pipkin. They will give a punctual account of the rise of thunder, of the origin of winds, of the nature of eclipses, and of all the other obstrusest difficulties in physics, without the least demur or hesitation, as if they had been admitted into the cabinet council of nature, or had been eye-witnesses to all the accurate methods of creation ; though alas nature does but laugh at all THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 129- their puny conjectures. For they never yet made one considerable discovery, as appears in that they are unanimously agreed in no one point of the smallest moment ; nothing so plain or evident but what by some or other is opposed and contradicted. But though they are ignorant of the artificial contexture of the least insect, they vaunt however, and brag that they know all things, when indeed they are unable to construe the mechanism of their own body. Nay, when they are so purblind as not to be able to see a stone's cast before them, yet they shall be as sharp-sighted as possible in spying- out ideas, universals, separate forms, first matters, quiddities, formalities, and a hundred such like niceties, so diminutively small, that were not their eyes extremely magnifying, all the art of optics could never make them discernible. But they then most despise the low grovelling vulgar when they bring out their parallels, triangles, circles, and other mathematical figures, drawn up in battalia, like so many spells and charms of con- juration in muster, with letters to refer to the explication of the several problems ; hereby raising devils as it were, only to have the credit of 130 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. laying them, and amusing the ordinary spectators into wonder, because they have not wit enough to understand the juggle. Of these some under- take to profess themselves judicial astrologers, pretending to keep correspondence with the stars, and so from their information can resolve any query. And though it is all but a pre- sumptuous imposture, yet some to be *sure will be so great fools as to believe them. ' The divines present themselves next. But it may perhaps be most safe to pass them by, and not to touch upon so harsh a string as this subject would afford. Beside, the undertaking may be very hazardous ; for they are a sort of men gener- ally very hot and passionate ; and should I provoke them, I doubt not would set upon me with a full cry, and force me with shame to recant, which if I stubbornly refuse to do, they will presently brand me for a heretic, and thunder out an excommunica- tion, which is their spiritual weapon to wound such as lift up a hand against them. It is true, no men own a less dependence on me, yet have they reason to confess themselves indebted for no small obligations. For it is by one of my THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 131 properties, self-love, that they fancy themselves, with their 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 fence themselves in with so many surrounders of magisterial definitions, conclusions, corollaries, pro- positions explicit and implicit, that there is no falling in with them. Or if they do chance to be urged to a seeming non-plus, yet they find out so many evasions, that all the art of man can never bind them so fast, but that an easy distinction shall give them a starting-hole to escape the scandal of being baffled. [JThey will cut asunder the toughest argument with as much ease as Alexander did the gordian knot ; they will thunder out so many rattling terms as shall fright an adversary into conviction. They are exquisitely dexterous in unfolding the most intricate mysteries ; they will tell you to a tittle all the successive proceedings of Omnipotence in the creation of the universe ; they will explain the precise manner of original sin being derived from our first parents. They will satisfy you in 132 THE PRAISE OF POLL Y. what manner, by what degrees, and in how long a time, our Saviour was conceived in the Virgin's womb, and demonstrate in the consecrated wafer how accidents may subsist without a subject. Nay, these are accounted trivial, easy questions ; they have yet far greater difficulties behind, which not- withstanding they solve with as much expedition as the former. As namely, whether supernatural generation re- quires any instant of time for its acting ? Whether Christ, as a son, bears a double specifically distinct relation to God the Father, and his virgin mother ? Whether this proposition is possible to be true, the first person of the Trinity hated the second ? Whether God, who took our nature upon him in the form of a man, could as well have become a woman, a devil, a beast, an herb, or a stone ? And were it so possible that the Godhead had appeared in any shape of an inanimate substance, how he should then have preached his gospel ? Or how have been nailed to the cross ? Whether if St. Peter had celebrated the eucharist at the same time our Saviour was hanging on the cross, the conse- crated bread would have been transubstantiated . 8 5 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 133 into the same body that remained on the tree ? Whether in Christ's corporal presence in the sacra- mental wafer, his humanity be not abstracted from his Godhead ? Whether after the resurrection we shall carnally eat and drink as we do in this life ? There are a thousand other more sublimated and refined niceties of notions, relations, quantities, formalities, quiddities, hseccities, and such like ab- strusities, as one would think no one could pry into, except he had not only such cat's eyes as to see best in the dark, but even such a piercing faculty as to see through an inch-board, and spy out what really never had any being. Add to these some of their tenets and opinions, which are so absurd and extravagant, that the wildest fancies of the Stoics, which they so much disdain and decry as paradoxes, seem in comparison just and rational. As their maintaining, that it is a less aggravating fault to kill a hundred men, than for a poor cobbler to set a stitch on the Sabbath-day ; or, that it is more justifiable to do the greatest injury imaginable to others, than to tell the least lie ourselves. And these subtleties are alchymized to a more refined sublimate by the abstracting brains of their 134 THE PRAISE OF POLL Y. several schoolmen ; the Realists, the Nominalists, the Thomists, the Albertists, the Occainists, the Scotists. These are not all, but the rehearsal of a few only, as a specimen of their divided sects ; in each of which there is so much of deep learning, so much of unfathomable difficulty, that I believe the apostles themselves would stand in need of a new illuminating spirit, if they 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 faith to be the substance of things not seen, these men carp at it for an imperfect definition, and would undertake to teach the apostles better logic. Thus the same holy author wanted for nothing of the grace of charity, yet, say they, he describes and defines it but very inaccurately, when he treats of it in the thirteenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians, j The primitive disciples were very frequent in administering the holy sacrament, breaking bread from house to house ; yet should they be asked of the Terminus a quo and the Terminus ad quern, the nature of trans ubstantiat ion ? The manner how one body can be in several places at the same time ? [( CNIVERSITl THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 135 The difference betwixt the several attributes of Christ in heaven, on the cross, and in the con- secrated bread ? What time is required for the transubstantiating the bread into flesh ? How it can be done by a short sentence pronounced by the priest, which sentence is a species of discreet quantity, that has no permanent punctum ? Were they asked these, and several other confused queries, I do not believe they could answer so readily as our mincing school-men now-a-days take a pride to do. They were well acquainted with the Virgin Mary, yet none of them undertook^ to prove that she was presep^^Timftaeul^eTrom original^ stints stomp, nf nnr djvvnps very hotly contend for. St. Peter had the keys grveirtcrfetmT^nd that by our Saviour himself, who had never entrusted him except he had known him capable of their manage and custody. And yet it is much to be questioned whether Peter was sensible of that subtlety broached by Scotus, that he may have the key of knowledge effectually for others, who has no knowledge actually in himself.' Again, the disciples baptized all nations, and yet never taught what was the formal, material, efficient, and final cause of 136 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. baptism, and certainly never dreamt of distinguish- ing between a delible and an indelible character in this sacrament. They worshipped in the spirit, fol- lowing their master's injunction, God is a spirit, and they which worship him, must worship him in spirit, and in truth ; yet it does not appear that it was ever revealed to them how divine adoration should be paid at the same time to our blessed Saviour in heaven, and to his picture here below on a wall, drawn with two figures held out, a bald crown, and a circle round his head. To reconcile these intricacies to an appearance of reason requires three-score years' experience in metaphysics. Farther, the apostles often mention Grace, yet never distinguish between gratia, gratis data, and gratia gratiftcans. They earnestly exhort us like- wise to good works, yet never explain the differ- ence between Opus operans, and Opus operatum. They very frequently press and invite us to seek after charity, without dividing it into infused and acquired, or determining whether it be a substance or an accident, a created or an uncreated being. They detested sin themselves, and warn others from the commission of it ; and yet I am sure they THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 137 could never have defined so dogmatically, as the Scotists have since done. St. Paul, who in other's judgment is no less the chief of the apostles, than he was in his own the chief of sinners, who being bred at the feet of Gamaliel, was certainly more eminently a scholar than any of the rest, yet he often exclaims against vain philosophy, warns us from doting about questions and strifes of words, and charges us to avoid profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called. Which he would not have done, if he had thought it worth his while to have become acquainted with them, which he might soon have been, the disputes of that age being but small, and more intelligible sophisms, in reference to the vastly greater intricacies they are now improved to. But yet, however, our scholastic divines are so modest, that if they meet with any passage in St. Paul, or any other penman of holy writ, which is not so well modelled, or critically disposed of, as they could wish, they will not roughly condemn it, but bend it rather to a favourable interpretation, out of reverence to antiquity, and respect to the 9 138 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. holy scriptures. Though indeed it were unreason- able to expect anything of this nature from the apostles, whose lord and master had given unto them to know the mysteries of God, but not those of philosophy. If the same divines meet with anything of like nature unpalatable in St. Chrysostom, St. Basil, St. Hierom, or others of the fathers, they will not stick to appeal from their authority, and very fairly resolve that they lay under a mistake. Yet these ancient fathers were they who confuted both the Jews and Heathens, though they both obstinately adhered to their respective prejudices ; they confuted them I say, yet by their lives and miracles, rather than by words and syllogisms. And the persons they thus proselyted were down- right honest, well meaning people, such as under- stood plain sense better than any artificial pomp of reasoning. Whereas if our divines should now set about the gaining converts from paganism by their ' metaphysical subtleties, they would find that most of the persons they applied themselves to were either so ignorant as not at all to apprehend them, or so impudent as to scoff and deride them. Or THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 139 finally, so well skilled at the same weapons, that they would be able to keep their pass, and fence off all assaults of conviction. And this last way the victory would be altogether as hopeless, as if two persons were engaged of so equal strength, that it were impossible any one should overpower the oilier. If my judgment might be taken, I would advise Christians, in their next expedition 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 obstinate Occamists, their invincible Albertists, and all their forces of tough, crabbed and profound disputants. The engagement, I fancy, would be mighty pleasant, and the victory we may imagine op. our side not to be questioned. For which of the enemies would not veil their turbants at so solemn an Appearance ? Which of the fiercest Janizaries would noK throw away his scimitar, and all the half-moons be eclipsed by the interposition of so glorious an army ? I suppose you mistrust I speak all this by way of jeer and irony ; and well I may, since among 140 THE PEAISE OF FOLLY. divines themselves there are some so ingenious as to despise these captious and frivolous imper- tinences. They look upon it as a kind of profane sacrilege, and a little less than blasphemous im- piety, to determine of such niceties in religion, as ought rather to be the subject of an humble vand uncon tradict ing faith, than of a scrupulous ajid inquisitive reason. They abhor a defiling the mysteries of Christianity with an intermixture of heathenish philosophy, and judge it very improper to reduce divinity to an obscure speculative science, whose end is such a happiness as can be gained only by the means of practice. But alas, those notional divines, however con- demned by the soberer judgment of others, are yet mightily pleased with themselves, and are so labori- ously intent upon prosecuting their crabbed studies, that they cannot afford so much time as to read a single chapter in any one book of the whole bible. And while they thus trifle away their mis-spent hours in trash and babble, they think that they support the Catholic Church with the props and pillars of propositions and syHogisms, no less elfec- I 3 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 141 tuallj than Atlas is feigned by the poets to sustain on his shoulders the burden of a tottering world. Their privileges, too, and authority are very con- siderable. They can deal with any text of scripture as with a nose of wax, knead it into what shape best suits their interest ; and whatever conclusions they have dogmatically resolved upon, they would have them as irrepealably ratified as Solon's laws, and in as great force as the very decrees of the 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 proposi- tion is scandalous, that irreverent ; this has a smack of heresy, and that is bald 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, that shall make a man a Christian, except he have the joint suffrage of these novices in learning, who have blessed the world no doubt with a great many discoveries, which had never come to light if they had not struck the fire of subtlety out of the flint of ob- 142 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. scurity. These fooleries sure must be a happy employ. Farther, they make as many partitions and divisions in hell and purgatory, and describe as many different sorts and degrees of punishment as if they were very well acquainted with the soil and situation of those infernal regions. And to prepare a seat for the blessed above, they in- vent new orbs, and a stately empyrean heaven, so wide and spacious as if they had purposely con- trived it, that the glorified saints might have room enough to walk, to feast, or to take any recreation. With these, and a thousand more such like toys, their heads are more stuffed 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 his teeming burden. Do not wonder, there- fore, that at public disputations they bind their heads with so many caps one over another ; for this is to prevent the loss of their brains, which would otherwise break out from their uneasy confinement. It affords likewise a pleasant scene of laughter, to listen to these divines in their hotly managed dis- putations. To see how proud they are of talking THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 143 such hard gibberish, and stammering out such blundering distinctions, as the auditors perhaps may sometimes gape at, but seldom apprehend. And they take such a liberty in their speaking of Latin, 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 the authority of their respective master, which word they bear as pro- found a respect to as the Jews did to their ineffable tetragrammaton, and therefore they will be sure never to write it any otherwise than in great letters, MAGISTER NOSTEB. And if any happen to invert the order of the words, and say, noster magister, instead of magister noster, they will presently exclaim against him as a pestilent heretic apd underminer of the catholic faith. //The next to these are ^nottiBissoj't of brainsick fools, who style themselves monks and of religious, orders, though they assume both titles very un- justly. For as to the last, they have very little religion in them ; and as to the former, the etymo- 144 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. logy of the word monk implies a solitariness, or being alone ; whereas they are so thick abroad that we cannot pass any street or alley without meeting them. Now I cannot imagine what one degree of men would be more hopelessly wretched, if I 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 immerged themselves in. But when these sort of men are so unwelcome to others, as that the very sight of them is thought ominous, I yet make them highly in love with themselves, and fond admirers of their own happi- ness. The first step whereunto they esteem a pro- found ignorance, thinking carnal knowlege a great enemy to their spiritual welfare, and seem confi- ydent of becoming greater proficients in divine <^ mysteries the less they are poisoned with any human learning. They imagine that they bear a sweet consort with the heavenly choir, when they tone out their daily tally of psalms, which they rehearse only by rote, without permitting their understanding or affections to go along with their voice. Among these, some make a good profitable trade I THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 145 of beggary, going about from house to house, not like the apostles, to break, but to beg, their bread. Nay, thrust into all public-houses, come aboard the passage-boats, get into the travelling waggons, and omit no opportunity of time or place for the craving people's charity ; doing a great deal of injury to common highway beggars by interloping in their traffic of alms. And when they are thus volun- tarily poor, destitute, not provided with two coats, nor with any money in their purse, they have the impudence to pretend that they imitate the first disciples, whom their master expressly sent out in such an equipage. It is pretty to observe how they regulate all their actions as it were by weight and measure to so exact a proportion, as if the whole loss of their religion depended upon the omission of the least punctilio. Thus they must be very critical in the precise number of knots to the tying on of their sandals ; what distinct colours their respective habits, and what stuff made of ; how broad and long their girdles ; how big, and in what fashion, their hoods ; whether their bald crowns be to a hair's- 146 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. breadth of the right cut ; how many hours they must sleep, at what minute rise to prayers, etc. And these several customs are altered accord- ing to the humours of different persons and places. While they are sworn to the superstitious obser- vance of these trifles, they do not only despise all others, but are very inclinable to fall out among themselves ; for though they make profession of an apostolic charity, yet they will pick a quarrel, and be implacably passionate for such poor provoca- tions, as the girting on a coat the wrong way, for the wearing of clothes a little too darkish coloured, or any such nicety not worth the speaking of. Some are so obstinately superstitious that they will wear their upper garment of some coarse dog's hair stuff, and that next their skin as soft as silk. But others, on the contrary, will have linen frocks outermost, and their shirts of wool or hair. Some, again, will not touch a piece of money, though they make no scruple of the sin of drunkermsss-and the lust of the flesh. All their several orders are mindful of nothing more than of their being distinguished from each other by their different customs and habits. They THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 147 seem, indeed, not so careful of becoming like Christ, and of being known to be his disciples, as the being unlike to one another, and distinguishable for fol- lowers of their several founders. A great part of their religion consists in their title. Some will be called cordeliers, and these subdivided into capu- chines, minors, minims, and mendicants ; some, again, are styled Benedictines, others of the order of St. Bernard, others of that of St, Bridget ; some are Augustin monks, some Willielmites, and others Jacobists, as if the common name of Christian were too mean and vulgar. Most of them place their greatest stress for sal- > vation on a strict conformity to their foppish cere- monies, and a belief of their legendary traditions. Wherein they fancy to have acquitted themselves with so much of supererogation, that one heaven can never be a condign reward for their meritorious life ; little thinking that the Judge of all the earth at the last day shall put them off, with a " Who hath required these things at your hands ? " and call them to account only for the stewardship of his legacy, which was the precept of love and charity. 148 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. It will be pretty to hear their pleas before the great tribunal. One will brag how he mortified his carnal appetite by feeding only upon fish. Another will urge that he spent most of his time on earth in the divine exercise of singing psalms. A third will tell how many days he fasted, and what severe penance he imposed on himself for the bringing his body into subjection. Another shall produce in his own behalf as many ceremonies as would load a fleet of merchantmen. A fifth shall plead that in threescore years he never so much as touched a piece of money, except he fingered it through a thick pair of gloves. A sixth, to testify his former humility, shall bring along with him his sacred hood, so old and nasty, that any seaman had rather stand bare headed on the deck, than put it on to defend his ears in the sharpest storms. The next that comes to answer for himself shall plead, that for fifty years together, he had lived like a sponge upon the same place, and was content never to change his homely habitation. Another shall whisper softly, and tell the judge he has lost his voice by a continual singing of holy hymns and anthems. The next shall confess how he fell into 1 3 15 " THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 149 a lethargy by a strict, reserved, and sedentary life. And the last shall intimate that he has forgot to speak, by having always kept silence, in obedience to the injunction of taking heed lest he should have offended with his tongue. But amidst all their fine excuses our Saviour shall interrupt them with this answer, Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, verily I know you not ; I left you but one precept, of loving one another, which I do not hear any one plead he has faithfully discharged ; I told you plainly in my gospel, without any parable, that my father's kingdom was prepared not for such as should lay claim to it by austerities, prayers, or fastings, but for those who should render themselves worthy of it by the exercise of faith, and the offices of charity ; I cannot own such as depend on their own merits without a reliance on my mercy ; as many of you therefore as trust to the broken reeds of your own deserts may even go search out a new heaven, for you shall never enter into that, which from the foundations of the w r orld was prepared only for such as are true of heart. When these monks and friars shall meet with 150 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. such a shameful repulse, and see that ploughmen and mechanics are admitted into that kingdom, from which they themselves are shut out, how sneakingly will they look, and how pitifully slink away ? Yet till this last trial they had more comfort of a future happiness, because more hopes of it than any other men. And these persons are not only great in their own eyes, but highly esteemed and respected by others, especially those of the order of mendicants, whom none dare to offer any affront to, because as confessors they are in- trusted with all the secrets of particular intrigues, which they are bound by oath not to discover. Yet many times, when they are almost drunk, they can- not keep their tongue so far within their head, as not to be babbling out some hints, and showing them- selves so full, that they are in pain to be delivered. If any person give them the least provocation they will sure to be revenged of him, and in their next public harangue give him such shrewd wipes and reflections, that the whole congregation must needs take notice at whom they are levelled. Nor will they ever desist from this way of declaiming, till their mouth be stopped with a bribe to hold r lHE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 151 their tongue. All their preaching is mere stage- playing, and their delivery the very transports of ridicule and drollery. Good Lord ! how mimical are their gestures ? What heights and falls in their voice ? What toning, what bawling, what singing, what squeaking, what grimaces, making of mouths, apes' faces, and distorting of their countenance ; and this art of oratory as a choice mystery, -they convey down by tradition to one another. The manner of it I may adventure thus farther to enlarge upon. First, in a kind of mockery they implore the divine assistance, which they borrowed from the solemn custom of the poets ; then if their text suppose be of charity, they shall take their exordium as far off as from a description of the river Nile 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 if their subject be of fasting, for an entrance to their sermon they shall pass though the twelve signs of the zodiac; or lastly, if they are to preach of faith, they shall address themselves in a long mathematical ac- count of the quadrature of the circle. I myself once heard a great fool, a great scholar 152 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. ,Xwould have said, undertaking in a laborious dis- course to explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity, in the unfolding whereof, that he might shew his wit and reading, and together satisfy itching ears, he proceeded in a new method, as by insisting on the letters, syllables, and proposition, on the con- cord of noun and verb, and that of noun substantive, and noun adjective. The auditors all wondered, 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 the whole Trinity to be represented by these first rudiments of grammar, as clearly and plainly as it was possible for a mathematician to draw a triangle in the sand. And for the making of this grand discovery, this subtle divine had plodded so hard for eight months together, that he studied himself as blind as a beetle, the intenseness of the eye of his understanding over- shadowing and extinguishing that of his body. And yet he did not at all repent him of his blind- ness, but thinks the loss of his sight an easy pur- chase for the gain of glory and credit. 1 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 153 /I heard at another time a grave divine, of fourscore years of age at least, so sour and hard- favoured, that one would be apt to mistrust that it was Scotus Redivivus ; he taking upon him to treat of the mysterious name, JESUS, did very subtly pretend that in the very letters was con- tained, whatever could be said of it. For first, its being declined only with three cases, did expressly point out the trinity of persons, then that the nomi- native ended in S, the accusative in M, and the ablative in U, did imply some unspeakable mystery, viz., that in words of those initial letters Christ was the summus, or beginning, the medius, or middle, and the idtimus, or end of all things. There was yet a more abstruse riddle to be explained, which was by dividing the word JESUS into two parts, and separating the S in the middle from the two extreme syllables, making a kind of pentameter, the word consisting of five letters. And this inter- medial S being in the Hebrew alphabet called sin, which in the English language signifies what the Latins term peccatum, was urged to imply that the holy Jesus should purify us from all sin and wickedness?! 10 154 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. Thus did the pulpiteer cant, while all the con- gregation, especially the brotherhood of divines, were so surprised at his odd way of preaching, that wonder served them, as grief did Niobe, almost turned them into stones. I among the rest ; as Horace describes Priapus viewing the enchantments of the two sorceresses, Canidia and Sagane ; could no longer contain, but let fly a cracking report of the operation it had upon me. These impertinent introductions are not without reason condemned ; for of old, whenever Demosthenes among the Greeks, or Tully among the Latins, began their orations with so great a digression from the matter in hand, it was always looked upon as improper and unelegant, and indeed, were such a long-fetched exordium any token of a good invention, shepherds and plough- men might lay claim to the title of men of greatest parts, since upon any argument it is easiest for them to talk what is least to the purpose. These preachers think their preamble, as we may well term, it, to be the most fashionable, when it is farthest from the subject they propose to treat of, while each auditor sits and wonders what they THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 155 drive at, and many times mutters out the complaint of Virgil : Whither does all this jargon tend ? In the third place, when they come to the division of their text, they shall give only a very short touch at the interpretation of the words, when the fuller explication of their sense ought to have been their only province. Fourthly, after they are a little entered, they shall start some theological queries, far enough off from the matter in hand, and bandy it about pro and con till they lose it in the heat of scuffle. ^And here they shall cite their doctors invincible, subtle, seraphic, cherubic, holy, irrefragable, and such like great names to confirm their several asser- tions. Then out they bring their syllogisms, their majors, their minors, conclusions, corollaries, sup- positions, and distinctions, that will sooner terrify the congregation into an amazement, than persuade them into a conviction. Now comes the fifth act, in which they must exert their utmost skill to come off with applause. Here therefore they fall a telling some sad lamentable story out of their legend, or some other fabulous history, and this they descant 156 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. upon allegorically, tropologically, and analogically^ And so they draw to a conclusion of their discourse? which is a more brain-sick chimera than ever Horace could describe in his De Arte Poetica, when he began : Humano Capiti, etc. Their praying is altogether as ridiculous as their preaching ; for imagining that in their addresses to heaven they should set 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 afraid any one should overhear what they said. But when they are gone a little way, they clear up their pipes by degrees, and at last bawl out so loud as if with Baal's priests, they were resolved to awake a sleeping god. Arid then again, being told by rhetoricians that heights and falls, and a different cadency in pronunciation, is a great advantage to the setting off any thing that is spoken, they will sometimes, as it were, mutter their words inwardly, and then of a sudden hollo them out, and be sure at last, in such a flat, faltering tone, as if their spirits were spent, and they had run themselves out of breath. I I THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 157 Lastly, they have read that most systems of rhetoric treat of the art of exciting laughter ; therefore, for the effecting of this, they will sprinkle some jests and puns that must pass for ingenuity, though they are only the froth and folly of affected- ness. Sometimes they will nibble at the wit of being satirical, though their utmost spleen is so toothless, that they suck rather than bite, tickle rather than scratch or wound. Nor do they ever flatter more than at such times as they pretend to speak with greatest freedom. Finally, all their actions are so buffbonish and mimical, that any would judge the^had learned all their tricks of mountebanks and stage -players, who in action, it is true, may perhaps outdo them, but in oratory there is so little odds between both, that it is hard to determine which seems of longest standing in the schools of eloquence. Yet these preachers, however ridiculous, meet with such hearers, who admire them as much as the people of Athens did Demosthenes, or the citizens of Rome could do Cicero. Among which admirers are chiefly shopkeepers, and women, whose approbation and good opinion they only court ; because the first, if 158 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. they are humoured, give them some snacks out of unjust gain ; and the last come and ease their grief to them upon all pinching occasions, especially when their husbands are any ways cross or unkind. Thus much, I suppose, may suffice to make you sensible how much these cell -hermits and recluses are indebted to my bounty. Who, when they tyrannise 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 disowners of their obligations to folly, than they are impudent pre- tenders to the profession of piety, I willingly take my leave of, and pass now Jx> kings, ]prjnces, and courtiers, who, paying me a devout acknowledg- ment, may justly challenge back the respect of being mentioned and taken notice of by me. And first, had they wisdom enough to make a true judgment of things, they would find their own condition to be more despicable and slavish than that of the most menial subjects. For certainly none can esteem perjury or parricide a cheap purchase for a crown, if he does but seriously THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 159 reflect on that weight of cares a princely diadem is loaded with. He that sits at the helm of govern- ment acts in a public capacity, and so must sacrifice all private interest to the attainment of the common' good. He must himself be conformable to those laws his prerogative exacts, or else he can expect no obedience paid them from others ; he must have a strict eye over all his inferior magistrates and officers, or otherwise it is to be doubted they will but carelessly discharge their respective duties. Every king, within his own territories, is placed for a shining example as it were in the firmament of his wide-spread dominions, to prove ^either a glorious star of benign influence, if his behaviour be remarkably just and innocent ; or else to impend as a threatening comet, if his blazing power be pestilent and hurtful. Subjects move in a darker sphere, and so their wanderings and failings are less discernible. Whereas princes, being fixed in a more exalted orb, and encompassed with a brighter dazzling lustre, their spots are more apparently visible, and their eclipses, or other defects, influential on all that is inferior to them. Kings are baited with so many temptations and oppor- 160 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. tunities to vice and immorality, such as are high feeding, liberty, flattery, luxury, and the like, that they must stand perpetually on their guard, to fence off those assaults that are always ready to be made upon them. In fine, abating from treachery, hatred, dangers, fear, and a thousand other mischiefs impending on crowned heads, however uncontrollable they are this side heaven ; yet after their reign here they must appear before a supremer judge, and there be called to an exact account for the discharge of that great stewardship which was committed to their trust. If princes did but seriously consider, and consider they would if they were but wise, these Smany hardships of a royal life, they would be so ^perplexed in the result of their thoughts thereupon., "^&s scarce to eat or sleep in quiet. But now by my assistance they leave all these \cares to the gods, and mind only their own ease \and pleasure, and therefore will admit none to their attendance but who will divert them with sport and mirth, lest they should otherwise be seized and damped with the surprisal of sober thoughts. They think they have sufficiently acquitted themselves THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 161 in the duty of governing, if they do but ride con- stantly a-hunting, breed up good race-horses, sell places and offices to those of the courtiers that will give most for them, and find out new ways for in- vading of their people's property, and hooking in a larger revenue to their own exchequer. For the procurement whereof they will always have some pretended claim and title ; that though it be manifest extortion, yet it may bear the show of law and justice. And then they daub over their oppression with a submissive, flattering carriage, that they may so far insinuate into the affections of the vulgar, as they may not tumult nor rebel, but patiently crouch to burdens and exactions. Let us feign now a person 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, a professed enemv to liberty and truth, careless andN^unmindftil^tJi the common concerns, taking all the measures of justice and honesty from the false beam of self-interest and advantage, after this hang about his neck a gold chain, for an intimation that he ought to have 162 I HE PRAISE OF FOLLY. all virtues linked together. Then set a crown of gold and jewels on his head, for a token that he ought to overtop and outshine others in all com- mendable qualifications ; next, put into his hand a royal sceptre for a symbol of justice and integrity ; lastly clothe him with purple, for an hieroglyphic of a tender love and affection to the commonwealth. If a prince should look upon this portraiture, and draw a comparison between that and himself, certainly he would be ashamed of his ensigns of majesty, and be afraid of being laughed out of them. ext to kings themselves may come their courtiers, who, though they are for the most part a base, servile, cringing, low-spirited sort of flat- terers, yet they look big, swell great, and have high thoughts of their honour and grandeur. Their confidence appears upon all occasions ; yet in this one thing they are very modest, in that they are content to adorn their bodies with gold, jewels, purple, and other glorious ensigns of virtue and wisdom, but leave their minds empty and unfraught ; and taking the resemblance of good- THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 163 ness to themselves, turn over the truth and reality of it to others. They think themselves mighty happy in that they can call the king master, and be allowed the famili- arity of talking with him. That they can volubly rehearse his several titles of august highness, super- eminent excellence, and most serene majesty, that they can boldly usher in any discourse, and that they have the complete knack of insinuation and flattery ; for these are the arts that make them truly genteel and noble. If you make a stricter enquiry after their other endowments, you shall find them mere sots and dolts. They will sleep generally till noon, and then their mercenary chap- lains shall come to their bed-side, and entertain them perhaps with a short morning prayer. As soon as they are dressed they must go to breakfast, and when that is done, immediately to dinner. When the cloth is taken away, then to cards, dice, tables, or some such like diversion. After this they must have one or two afternoon banquets, and so in the evening to supper. When they have supped then begins the game of drinking ; the bottles are mar- 164 THE PEAISE OF FOLLY. shalled, the glasses ranked, and round go the healths and bumpers till they are carried to bed. And this is the constant method of passing away their hours, days, months, years, and ages. I have many times took great satisfaction by standing in the court, and seeing how the tawdry butterflies vie upon one another. The ladies shall measure the height of their humours by the length of their trails, which must be borne up by a page behind. The nobles jostle one another to get nearest to the king's elbow, and wear gold chains of that weight and bigness as require no less strength to carry than they do wealth to purchase. And now for some reflections upon popes^. car- dinals, and bishops, who in pomp and splendour