ty of California ern Regional iry Facility ERASMVS. E^RASMUS IN PEAISE OF FOLLY WITH PORTRAIT, LIFE OF ERASMUS, AND HIS EPISTLE TO SIR THOMAS MORE. Illustrated with many curious Engravings, Designed, Drawn, and Etched by HANS HOLBEIN. NEW YORK: PETER ECKLER PUBLISHING CO. 1922 Printed in U. S. A. PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. HTHE works of Erasmus, which have so greatly enriched 1 the literature of the world, have survived the lapse of centuries that have passed; and, because they contain that "one touch of nature which makes the whole world kin," they will survive the lapse of untold centuries yet to come. His description of the bigotry and superstition the ignorance and credulity of the masses of his day, is as true now as it was when first given to the world ; and his account of the pleadings and preachings the pretensions and presumptions of the dominant priesthood is as ap- plicable to the twentieth, as to the fifteenth century in which it was written. Under the pleasing mask of Folly our author has uttered truths which are indeed sublime, and in the witty language of the Jester he has exposed the fallacies of that Faith which has, not inaptly, been defined by an inspired writer in the New Testament, as ' ' the evidence of things not seen, and the substance of things hoped for." Like the late ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, ERASMUS was above all things a critic, and he has most severely criticised the priesthood of his day ; while our talented American orator, from his tolerant spirit, and from the innate kindness of his nature, was inclined to mercy, and looked with eyes of pity and commiseration upon the entire priestly fraternity, they being, unfortunately, the inheritors of ancient ignorance and error, which, indeed, they did not originate, and from which they have not the intelligence and resolution to free their minds. co 2007487 vi PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. From the secure Citadel of Truth, armed with the weapons of reason and satire, Krasmus has in this work severely bombarded the strongholds of Faith, that faith which is founded on ignorance and superstition and his reward has been the continued popularity of his writings to the present day, and the world-wide recognition of his unquestioned talents. Perhaps no writer that ever lived could excel or even equal Erasmus in painting a word-picture as vivid and realistic as an object is reflected in a mirror placed before it. His well-known description of old age, may serve as an example : " 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 stooping toward the dust they must shortly return to whose skin seems already dressed into parchment, and their bones already dried to a skeleton these shadows of men shall be wonderfully ambitious of living longer, and therefore fence off the attacks of age with all imaginable sleights and impostures." p. 108. On page 116 we are told that, "in the infancy of the world, ignorance was as much the parent of happiness as it has since been of devotion," that in his day u the law- yers got the estates to themselves which they were em- ployed to recover for their clients, while in the mean time the poor divine shall have the lice crawl upon his thread-bare gown, before he can get money enough to purchase a new one." The affinity of Christianity with Folly, and, incident- ally, its divergence from Wisdom, is clearly shown. " It is observable that the Christian Religion seems to have some relation to Folly, and no alliance at all with wisdom. Of the truth whereof, if you desire farther proof than my bare word, you may please first to consider that children, women, old men, and fools, led as it were by a secret impulse of nature, are always most constant in repairing to church, and most zealous, devout, and attentive in the performance of the several parts of divine PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. vii service ; nay, the first promulgators of the gospel, and the first converts to Christianity, were men of plainness and simplicity, wholly unacquainted with secular policy or learning. " Farther, there are none more silly, or nearer their wits' end, than those who are too superstitiously religious. They are pro- fusely lavish in their charity ; they invite fresh affronts by an easy forgiveness of past injuries ; they suffer themselves to be imposed upon by laying claim to the innocence of the dove ; they make it the interest of no person to oblige them, because they will love and do good to their enemies, as much as to their most endearing friends ; they banish all pleasure, feeding upon the penance of watching, weeping, fasting, sorrow and ,reproach ; they value not their lives, but with St. Paul, wish to be dissolved, and covet the fiery trial of martyrdom : in a word, they seem altogether so destitute of common sense, that their soul seems already separa- ted from the dead and inactive body. And what else can we im- agine all this to be than downright madness ? " p. 313. It would be difficult to surpass the following severe but truthful criticism of the monkish fraternity. "The next to these [Divines] are another sort of brainless fools, who style themselves Monks, or members of religious orders, though they assume, both titles very unjustly: for as to the last, they have very little religion in them ; and as to the former, the etymology 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 : and I cannot im- agine which degree of men could be more hopelessly wretched if I [Folly] did not stand their friend, and buoy them up in that lake of misery, which by the engagements of a religious vow they have voluntarily immerged themselves into. "But whenifersfc 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 profound ignorance, thinking carnal knowledge a great enemy to spiritual welfare, and they seem confident of becoming greater proficients in divine mysteries, the less they are influenced with any human learning. " Among these, some make a good and profitable trade by beggary, going about from house to house, not like the apostles, to break, but to beg their bread, nay, they thrust themselves into all public houses, come aboard the passage-boats, get into the traveling wagons, and omit no opportunity of time or place for craving people's charity, and doing a great deal of injury to com- mon highway beggars by interfering with their traffic of alms. " It is amusing to observe how they regulate 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. viii PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. " Thus they must be very critical in the precise number of knots requisite for tying on their sandals ; what distinct colors their respective habits should be, and of what material made ; how broad and long their girdles ; how big and in what fashion their hoods ; whether their bald crowns be to a hair's-breadth of the right cut ; how many hours they must sleep, at what minute rise to prayers, etc." p. 226. On page 269 we are told that the Monks : " Never consider that their shaven crown is a token that they should pare off and cut away all the superfluous lusts of this world, and give themselves wholly to divine meditation ; but instead of this, our bald-pated priests think they have done enough if they do but mumble over such a fardel of prayers, which it is a wonder if God should hear or understand, when they whisper them so softly, and in so unknown a language, which they can scarce hear or understand themselves. This they have in common with other mechanics, that they are most subtle in the craft of getting money, and wonderfully skilled in their respective dues of tithes, offerings, perquisites, etc. " Thus they are all content to reap the profit, but as to the burden, that they toss as a ball from one hand to another, and assign it over to any they can get or hire. For as secular princes have their judges and subordinate ministers to act in their name, and supply their stead ; so ecclesiastical governors have their deputies, vicars, and curates, nay, and many times turn over the whole care of religion to the laity. The laity, supposing they have nothing to do with the church (as if their baptismal vow did not initiate them members of it), make it over to the priests ; of the priests again, those that are secular, thinking their title implies them to be a little too profane, assign this task over to the regulars, the regulars to the monks, the monks bandy it from one order to another, till it light upon the mendicants ; they lay it upon the Carthusians, which order alone keeps honesty and piety among them, but really keep them so close that nobody could ever yet see them. " Thus the Popes, thrusting out their sickle into the harvest of profit, leave all the other toil of spiritual husbandry to the bishops, the bishops bestow it upon the pastors, the pastors on their cu- rates, and the curates commit it to the mendicants, who return it again to such as well know how to make good advantage of the flock by securing the benefit of their fleece." Many subjects beside the priesthood and Christianity are critically and intelligently discussed by Erasmus throughout this work, which the intelligent reader will doubtless appreciate and enjoy. PETER ECKLER. THE LIFE OF ERASMUS. C RASMUS, so deservedly famous for his admirable 1 ' writings, the vast extent of his learning, his great candor and moderation, and for being one of the chief restorers of the Latin tongue on this side the Alps, was born at Rotterdam, on the 28th of October, in the year 1467. The anonymous author of his life (commonly printed with his Colloquies of the London edition) is pleased to tell us that de anno quo natus est apud batavos, non constat. And if he himself wrote the life which we find before the Elzevir edition, said to be Erasmo autore^ he does not particularly mention the year in which he was born, but places it circa annum 67 supra millesimum quadringentesimum. Another Latin life, which is pre- fixed to the above-mentioned London edition, fixes it in the year 1465 ; as does his epitaph at Basil. But as the inscription on his statue at Rotterdam, the place of his nativity, may reasonably be supposed to be the most authentic, we have followed that. His mother was the daughter of a physician at Seven- bergen in Holland, with whom his father contracted an acquaintance, and had correspondence with her on promise of marriage, and was actually contracted to her. His father's name was Gerard ; he was the youngest of ten brothers, without one sister coming between, for (ix) X THE LIFE OF ERASMUS. which reason his parents (according to the superstition of the times) designed to consecrate him to the church. His brothers liked the notion, because, as the church then governed all, they hoped, if he rose in his pro- fession, to have a sure friend to advance their interest ; but no importunities could prevail on Gerard to turn ecclesiastic. Finding himself continually pressed upon so disagreeable a subject, and not being able longer to bear it, he was forced to fly from his native country, leaving a letter for his friends, in which he acquainted them with the reason of his departure, and that he should never trouble them again. Thus he left her who was to have been his wife, big with child, and made the best of his way to Rome. Being an admirable master of the pen, he made a very genteel livelihood by transcribing most authors of note (for printing was not then in use). He for some time lived at large, but afterwards applied close to study, made great progress in the Greek and Latin lan- guages, and in the civil law ; for Rome at that time was full of learned men. When his friends knew he was at Rome, they sent him word that the young gentlewoman whom he had courted for a wife was dead ; upon which, in a melancholy fit, he took orders, and turned his thoughts wholly to the study of divinity. He returned to his own country, and found to his grief that he had been imposed upon ; but it was too late to think of marriage, so he dropped all farther pretensions to his mistress ; nor would she after this unlucky adventure be induced to marry. The son took the name of Gerard after his father, which in German signifies amiable, and (after the fashion THE LIFE OF ERASMUS. XI of the learned men of that age, who affected to give their names a Greek or L,atin turn) his was turned into Erasmus, which in Greek has the same signification. He was chorister of the cathedral church of Utrecht till he was nine years old ; after which he was sent to Deventer to be instructed by the famous Alexander Hegius, a Westphalian. Under so able a master he proved an extraordinary proficient ; and it is remarkable that he had such a strength of memory as to be able to say all Terence and Horace by heart. He was now arrived to the thirteenth year of his age, and had been continually under the watchful eye of his mother, who died of the plague then raging at Deventer. The con- tagion daily increasing, and having swept away the family where he boarded, he was obliged to return home. His father Gerard was so concerned at his wife's death that he grew melancholy, and died soon after : neither of his parents being much above forty when they died. Erasmus had three guardians assigned him, the chief of whom was Peter Winkel, schoolmaster of Goude ; and the fortune left him was amply sufficient for his support, if his executors had faithfully discharged their trust. Although he was fit for the University, his guardians were averse to sending him there, as they designed him for a monastic life, and therefore removed him to Bois- le-duc, where, he says, he lost near three years, living in a Franciscan convent. The professor of humanity in this Convent, admiring his rising genius, daily im- portuned him to take the habit, and be of their order. Erasmus had no great inclination for the cloister ; not that he had the least dislike to the severities of a pious xii THE LIFE OF ERASMUS. life, but he could not reconcile himself to the monastic profession ; he therefore urged his rawness of age, and desired farther to consider better of the matter. The plague spreading in those parts, and he having struggled a long time with a quartan ague, obliged him to return home. His guardians employed those about him to use all manner of arguments to prevail on him to enter the order of monk ; sometimes threatening, and at other times making use of flattery and fair speeches. When Winkel, his guardian, found him not to be moved from his resolution, he told him that he threw up his guardi- anship from that moment. Young Erasmus replied, that he took him at his word, since he was old enough now to look out for himself. When Winkel found that threats did not avail, he employed his brother, who was the other guardian, to see what he could effect by fair means. Thus he was surrounded by them and their agents on all sides. By mere accident, Erasmus went to visit a religious house belonging to the same order, in Emaus or Steyn, near Goude, where he met with one Cornelius, who had been his companion at Deventer ; and though he had not himself taken the habit, he was perpetually preaching up the advantages of a religious life, as the convenience of noble libraries, the helps of learned conversation, retirement from the noise and folly of the world, and the like. Thus at last he was induced to pitch upon this Convent. Upon his admission they fed him with great promises, to engage him to take the holy cloth ; and though he found almost everything fall short of his THE LIFE OF ERASMUS. Xlll expectation, yet his necessities, and the usage he was threatened with if he abandoned their order, prevailed with him, after his year of probation, to profess himself a member of their fraternity. Not long after this, he had the honor to be known to Henry a Bergis, bishop of Cambray, who having some hopes of obtaining a cardinal's hat, wanted one perfectly master of Latin to solicit this affair for him ; for this purpose Erasmus was taken into the bishop's family, where he wore the habit of his order. The bishop not succeeding in his expectation at Rome, proved fickle and wavering in his affection; therefore Erasmus prevailed with him to send him to Paris, to prosecute his studies in that famous university, with the promise of an annual allowance, which was never paid him. He was admitted into Montague Col- lege, but indisposition obliged him to return to the bishop, by whom he was honorably entertained. Finding his health restored, he made a journey to Holland, intending to settle there, but was persuaded to go a second time to Paris ; where, having no patron to support him, he says, he rather made a shift to live, than he could be said to study. He next visited England, where he was received with great respect ; and as appears by several of his letters, he honored it next to the place of his nativity. In a letter to Andrelinus, inviting him to England, he speaks highly of the beauty of the English ladies, and thus de- scribes their innocent freedom : " When you come into a gentleman's house you are allowed the favor to salute them, and the same when you take leave." He was XIV THE LIFE OF ERASMUS. particularly acquainted with Sir Thomas More, Colet, dean of Saint Paul's, Grocinus, Linacer, L,atimer, and many of the most eminent men of that time ; and passed some years at Cambridge. On his way to France he had the misfortune to be stripped of everything ; but he did not revenge this injury by any unjust reflection on the country. Not meeting with the preferment he expected, he made a voyage to Italy, at that time little inferior to the Augustan age for learning. He took his doctor of divinity degree in the university of Turin ; stayed about a year in Bologna ; afterward went to Venice, and there published his book of Adages from the press of the famous Aldus. He removed to Padua, and last to Rome, where his fame had arrived long before him. Here he gained the friendship of all the considerable persons of the city, nor could he have failed to have made his fortune, had he not been prevailed upon by the great promises of his friends in England to return thither on Henry VIII coming to the crown. He was taken into favor by Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, who gave him the living of Aldington, in Kent ; but whether Erasmus was wanting in making his court to Wolsey, or whether the cardinal viewed him with a jealous eye, because he was a favorite of Warham, between whom and Wolsey there was perpetual clashing, we know not ; however, being disappointed, Erasmus went to Flanders, and by the interest of Chancellor Sylvagius, was made counsellor to Charles of Austria, afterward Charles V, emperor of Germany. He resided several years at Basil ; but on the mass being abolished in that city by the Reformation, he retired to Friberg THE LIFE OF ERASMUS. XV in Alsace, where he lived seven years. Having been for a long time afflicted with the gout, he left Friberg, and returned to Basil. Here the gout soon left him, but he was seized by a dysentery, and after laboring a whole month under that disorder, died on the 22nd of July, 1536, in the house of Jerome Frobenius, son of John, the famous printer. He was honorably interred, and the city of Basil still pays the highest respecl to the memory of so great a man. Erasmus was the most facetious man, and the greatest critic of his age. He carried on a reformation in learning at the same time he advanced that of religion ; and pro- moted a purity of style as well as simplicity of worship. This drew on him the hatred of the ecclesiastics, who were no less bigoted to their barbarisms in language and philosophy, than they were to their superstitious and gaudy ceremonies in religion ; they murdered him in their dull treatises, libeled him in their wretched sermons, and in their last and most effectual efforts of malice, they joined some of their own execrable stuff to his compositions ; of which he himself complains in a letter addressed to the divines of Louvain. He exposed with great freedom the vices and corruptions of his own church, yet never would be persuaded to leave her com- munion. The papal policy would never have suffered Erasmus to have taken so unbridled a range in the reproof and censure of her extravagancies, but under such circumstances, when the public attack of I/uther imposed on her a prudential necessity of not disobliging her friends, that she might with more united strength Xvi THE LIFE OF ERASMUS. oppose the common enemy ; and patiently bore what at any other time she would have resented. Perhaps no man has obliged the public with a greater number of useful volumes than our author ; though several have been attributed to him which he never wrote. His book of Colloquies has passed through more editions than any of his others. Moreri tells us a boseller in Paris sold twenty thousand copies of one edition. EPISTLE TO SIR THOMAS MORE. 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 here left behind, among whom you (dear Sir) were represented as the chief ; 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, I thought good to divert myself with drawing up a panegyric upon' Folly. How ! what maggot (say you) put this in your head ? Why, the first hint, Sir, was your own surname of More, which comes as near the literal sound of the word,* as you yourself are dis- tant 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 es- pecially accepted of, by you, Sir, that are wont with this sort of jocose raillery (such as, if I mistake not, is neither dull nor impertinent) to be mightily pleased, and in your ordinary converse to approve yourself a Democ- *Mvpia. (xix) XX EPISTLE TO SIR THOMAS MORE. ritus junior : for truly, as you do from a singular vein of wit very much dissent from the common herd of man- kind ; so, by an incredible affability and pliableness of temper, you have the art of suiting your humor with all sorts of companies. 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 protec- tion, as being dedicated to you, and by that title adopted for yours, rather than to be fathered as my own. And it is a chance if there be wanting some quarrelsome persons that will show 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 Laician 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 of 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, that corrects him for this, did as much for the injustice of Glaucus. Favorinus ex- tolled 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 deifying of Claudius ; Plutarch the dialogue betwixt Gryllus and Ulysses ; L,ucian and Apuleius the story of an ass ; and somebody else records the last will of a hog, EPISTLE TO SIR THOMAS MORE. XXI 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 par- ticular 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, as that a reader of ordinary sense may possibly thence reap more advantage than from some more big and stately argument : as while one in a long-winded oration des- cants 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 to so treat of trifles, as to make them seem nothing less than what their name imports. As to what relates to myself, I must be forced to submit to the judgment of others ; yet, except I am too partial to be a judge in my own case, I am apt to believe I have praised Folly in such a manner as not to have deserved the name of fool for my pains. To reply now to the objection of satiricalness, wits have been always allowed this privilege, that they might be smart upon any transactions of life, if so be their lib- erty did not extend to railing ; which makes me wonder at the tender-eared humor of this age, which will admit no address without the prefatory repetition of all formal XX11 EPISTLE TO SIR THOMAS MORE. 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 with the least joke or gird, especially in what relates to their ordinary customs. But he who so blames men's irregularities as to lash at no one par- ticular person by name, does he (I say) seem to carp so properly as to teach and instruct? And if so, how am I concerned to make any farther excuse ? Beside, he who in his strictures points indifferently at all, he seems not angry at one man, but at all vices. Therefore, if any singly complain they are particularly reflected upon, they do but betray their own guilt, at least their cowardice. Saint Hierom dealt in the same argument at a much freer and sharper rate ; nay, and he did not sometimes refrain from naming the persons : whereas I 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 satire. Neither did I so far imitate Juvinal, as to rake into the sink of vices to procure a laughter, rather than create a hearty abhorrence. 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 rep- rehended by Folly, which since we have feigned as speaking, we must keep up that character which is suit- able to the person introduced. But why do I trouble you, Sir, with this needless 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. ARGUMENT AND DESIGN OF THE FOLLOWING ORATION. WHATE'ER the modern satyrs o' th' stage, To jerk the failures of a sliding age, Have lavishly expos'd to public view, For a discharge to all from envy due, Here in as lively colors naked lie, With equal wit and more of modesty, Those poets, with their free disclosing arts, Strip vice so near to its uncomely parts, Their libels prove but lessons, and they teach, Those very crimes which they intend t' impeach : While here so wholesome all, tho' sharp t' th' taste, So briskly free, yet so resolv'dly chaste ; The virgin naked as her god of bows, May read or hear when blood at highest flows ; Nor more expense of blushes thence arise, Than while the ledl'ring matron does advise To guard her virtue, and her honor prize. Satire and panegyric, distant be, Yet jointly here they both in one agree. The whole's a sacrifice of salt and fire ; So does the humor of the age require, To chafe the touch, and so foment desire. As doctrine-dangling preachers lull asleep Their unattentive pent-up fold of sheep ; The opiated milk glues up the brain, (xxiii) XXIV DESIGN OF THE FOLLOWING ORATION. And th' babes of grace are in their cradles lain ; While mounted Andrews, bawdy, bold, and loud, Like cocks, alarm and fright the drowsy crowd, Whose ample ears are prick'd as bolt upright, As sailing hairs are hoisted in a fright. So does it fare with croaking spawns o' th' press, The mould o' th' subject alters the success ; What's serious, like sleep, grants writs of ease, Satire and ridicule can only please ; As if no other animals could gape, But the biting-badger, or the snick'ring ape. Folly by irony's commended here, Sooth'd, that her weakness may the more appear. Thus fools, who trick'd, in red and yellow shine, Are made believe that they are wondrous fine, When all's a plot t' expose them by design. The largesses of Folly here are strown Like pebbles, not to pick, but trample on. Thus Spartans laid their drunken slaves before The boys, to jostle, kick, and tumble o'er : Not that the dry-lipp'd youngsters might combine To taste and know the mystery of wine, But wonder thus at men transformed to swine ; And th' power of such enchantment to escape, Timely renounce the devil of the grape. So here, Though Folly speaker be, and argument, Wit guides the tongue, wisdom's the Lecture meant. ERASMUS IN PRAISE OF FOLLY. An oration of feigned matter, spoken by FOLLY in her own person. HOW slightly soever I am esteemed in the common vogue of the world, (for I well know how disin- genuously 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 her ferment of mirth and jollity : of which this may be urged as a con- vincing 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 : you soon welcomed me with so encouraging a look, you spurred me on with so cheerful a hum, that truly in all appearance, you seem now flushed with a good dose of reviving nectar, when as just before you sate drowsy and melancholy, as if you were lately come out of some her- mit's cell. But as it is usual, that as soon as the smT 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 enlivening 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 colors. That (25) 26 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. therefore which expert orators can scarce effect by all their little artifice of eloquence, to wit, securing the attention of their auditors to a composedness of thought, this a bare look from me has commanded. The reason why I appear in this odd kind of garb, you shall soon be informed 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 mountebanks, buffoons and merry-andrews ; 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 humor to act awhile the sophist, yet not of that sort who undertake the drudgery of tyrannizing over school boys, 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 panegyric, yet not upon Hercules, Solon, or any other grandee, but on my- self, that is, upon Folly. And here I value not their censure that pretend 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 befiting than that Folly should be the trumpet of her own praise, and dance after her own pipe ? for who can set me forth better than myself? or who can pretend to be so well acquainted with my condition ? And yet farther, I may safely urge, that all this is no Folly readily receives Attention. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 29 more than the same with what is done by several seem- ingly great and wise men, who with a new-fashioned modesty employ some paltry orator or scribbling poet, whom they bribe to flatter them with some high-flown character, that shall consist of mere lies and shams ; and yet the persons thus extolled shall bristle up, and, peacock -like, bespread their plumes, while the impudent parasite magnifies the poor wretch to the skies, 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 a daw in stolen feathers ; a laboring to change the black-a-moor's hue, and the drawing on a pigmy's frock over the shoulders of a giant. L,astly, 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 ingrati- tude, 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 complaisant as to have bestowed on me a commendatory 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 such like trumperies. I shall entertain you with'a hasty and unpremeditated, but so much the more natural discourse. My venting it ex tempore^ I would not have you think proceeds from any principles of vain glory by which ordinary orators 30 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 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 humor 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. y myself. For it is equally hazardous to attempt the crowding her within the 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 concur. 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 in 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 Moapla, 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 my visage, the exact reflex of my soul, would supply and supersede the trouble of any other confessions ; for I appear always in my natural colors, and an unartificial dress, and never let my face pretend one thing, and my heart conceal another ; nay, and in all things I am so true to my principles, that I The Physician. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 33 cannot be so much as counterfeited, even by those who challenge the name of wits, yet indeed are no better than jackanapes tricked up in gawdy clothes, and asses strutting in lions' skins ; and how cunningly soever they carry it, their long ears appear, and betray what they are. These in troth are very rude and disingenuous, for while they apparently belong to my party, yet among the vulgar they are so ashamed of my relation, 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 indiffer- ently for either side, and deem it a very doughty exploit if they can but interlard a I/atin 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 understand them may be tickled with the happiness of being ac- quainted with them : and those who understand 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 undervalue whatever is strange and un- usual, 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 per- 34 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. haps 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 addi- tional 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 goddess Folly greet her devotees ? But since there are few acquainted with my family and origin, 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 of the universe ; at whose beck alone, for all ages, religion and civil policy have been successively undermined and re-established by whose powerful in- fluence 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 devo- tional address. Whoever he combats with as an enemy, nothing can be armor-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, The Harp and the Ass. The Wise Father and Foolish Son. Jove and his Nurse. THE PRAISE OP FOLLY. 43 famed for wit no less than beauty: and this feat was not done amidst the embraces of dull nauseous wedlock, but what gave a greater gust to the pleasure, it was done at a stolen bout, as we may modestly phrase it. But to pre- vent 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 inflamed by a chirping cup of nectar, which for a whet to his lust 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 Delo's, nor on the frothy sea, nor in any of these privacies, where too forward mothers are wont to retire for an undiscovered delivery ; but in the fortune islands, where all things grow without the toil of husbandry, wherein there is no drudgery, no distempers, no old age, where in the fields grow no daffodills, mallows, onions, pease, beans, or such kind of trash, but there give equal divertisement to our sight and smelling, rue, all-heal, bugloss, marjoram, herb of life, roses, violets, hyacinths, and such like fragrances as perfume the gardens of Adonis. 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 for his nurse, since I was more credit- ably suckled by two jolly nymphs ; the name of the first 44 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. drunkenness, one of Bacchus' s offspring, the other igno- rance, the daughter of Pan ; both which you may here behold among several others of my train and attendants, whose particular names, if you would feign know, I will give you in short. This, who goes with a mincing gait, and holds up her head so high, is Self-L/ove. 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 Forgetfulness. She that leans on her elbow, and sometimes yawningly stretches out her arms, is Laziness. This, that wears a plaited gar- land of flowers, and smells so perfumed, is Pleasure. The other, which appears 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 the lasses, the name of the one is Intemperance, the other Sound Sleep. 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 education, and my attendance; that I may not be taxed as pre- sumptuous in borrowing the title of a goddess, I come now in the next place to acquaint you what obliging favors I everywhere bestow, and how largely my juris- diction extends : for if, as one has ingenuously noted, to be a god is no other than to be a benefactor to mankind ; and 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 The Birth of Folly. King Solomon. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 51 toward all, exert an unparalleled bounty and benefi- cence ? 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 thoroughly-begotten Pallas, nor the buckler of cloud-gathering Jove, that rrmltiplies and propagates mankind, but that prime father of the universe, who at a displeasing nod makes heaven itself to tremble, he (I say) must lay aside his frightful ensigns of majesty, and put away that grim aspect wherewith 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 honor of a father. 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? 52 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. Or indeed what woman would open her arms to receive the embraces of a husband, if she did but fore- cast 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 can- not but acknowledge how much you are indebted to me. Beside, those who had once dearly bought the experi- ence 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), cannot deny, but that without my assistance, her procreative power would prove weak and in- effectual. 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, and 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 make it appear that I am the source and origin of all life, except that I likewise show that all the benefits of life are equally at my disposal. And what are they ? 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 The Matrimonial Noose. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 55 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 pleas- ure ; 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 themselves : but I dare them now to confess what one stage of life is not melancholy, dull, tiresome, tedious, and uneasy, unless we spice it with pleasure, that haut-gout of Folly. Of the truth whereof the never enough to be commended Sophocles is suffi- cient 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 so kiss, hug, and play with them, and that the bloodiest enemy can scarce have the heart to hurt them ; but their 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 favorably 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 indeed, but from 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 56 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. write man, their prettiness does then soon decay, their briskness flags, their humors stagnate, their jollity ceases, and their blood grows cold ; and the farther they proceed 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 succor 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 forgetfulness, (the fountain whereof is in the Fortunate Islands, and the river Teethe 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 mean by growing young again : for what else is it to be a child than to be a fool and an idiot ? It is the being such that makes that age so acceptable : for who does not esteem it some- what ominous to see a boy endowed with the discretion of a man, and therefore for the curbing of too forward parts we have a disparaging proverb, Soon ripe, soon rotten ? And farther, who would keep company or have The Schoolmaster, THE PRAISE OK FOLLY. 59 any thing to do with such an old blade, as, after the wear and harrowing of so many years should yet con- tinue 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. Sometimes, with the old fellow in Plautus, they are 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 assistance, they car- ry 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 deliver}' 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. And in this point indeed they surpass and outgo children, who are pretty forward in a softly, innocent prattle, but other- wise 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 60 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. otherwise their whitish hair, their want of teeth, their smallness of stature, their milk diet, their bald crowns, their prattling, their playing, their short memory, their heedlessness, and all their other endowments, exactly agree ; and the more they advance 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 attributes 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 some- times serpents ; but alas, their very change into some- what 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 consult their own interest, as to discard all thoughts of wisdom, and en- tirely resign themselves to my guidance and conduct, old age should be a paradox, and each man's years a per- petual spring. For look how your hard plodding students, by a close sedentary confinement to their books, grow mopish, pale, and meagre, as if by a con- tinual 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 them' Suspicion. Momos Thrust out of Heaven. Scribes and Pharisees. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 65 selves untainted from the contagiousness of wisdom, with the leprosy whereof, if at any time they are in- fected, it is only for prevention, 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 anti- dote against age, and 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 foolish 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 these are nearly related, as well by affinity of customs as of neighborhood, 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 pro verb, and yet scorn to be ashamed of their name. Well, let fond mortals go now in a needless quest of some enchanted fountain, for a restorative 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. 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 further flight. So then, if you will all agree to my verdict, that nothing is more desirable than the being young, nor anything 66 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. more dreaded than unavoidable old age, you must needs acknowledge it as an indisputable obligation from me, for fencing off the one, and perpetuating the other. But why should I confine my discourse to the nar- row subject of mankind only ? View the whole mytho- logical heaven itself, and then tell me which one of that divine tribe would not be mean and dispicable, 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 spend- ing his time in toping, dancing, masking, and reveling, 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 that all the rights of devotion which are paid unto him should consist of apishness and drollery. Farther, what scoffs and jeers did the old co- medians throw upon him? O swinish god, say they, that smells of the sty he was reared in, and so on. 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 indeed any other one of heaven's land- lords ? 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 Venus 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 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 69 near kinsman the painters, the first mentioning, the other drawing her constantly in that posture. Add farther to what deity did the Romans pay a more cere- monial respect than to Flora, that bawd of obscenity ? And if any one search the poets for an 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 himself are so notorious, and when the pretend- edly chaste Diana so oft uncloaked her modesty to run a hunting after her beloved Endimion. But I will say no more, for I had rather they should be told of their faults by Momus, who was want formerly to 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 correction ; and now in his banishment from heaven he finds but cold entertainment here on earth, nay, is denied all admit- tance into the court of princes, where notwithstanding my handmaid Flattery finds a most encouraging wel- come : but this petulent 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 Priappus 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 wonted 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 show his activity, may now dance a frisking jig, and the 70 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. nymphs be at the same sport quite 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 they are almost drunk, shall give a most profound attention. But why should 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 here below, where we shall find noth- ing happy, nay, nothing tolerable, without my presence and assistance. And in the first place consider how providently nature has taken care that in all her works there should be some piquant smack and relish of Foil}- : 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 human- ity more than a pound of passions to an ounce of reason; and reason he confined within 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 guard, that reason might make no assault, surprise, nor inroad ; anger, which keeps its station in the fortress of the heart ; and lust, which like the signs Virgo and Scorpio, rules the appetites and passions. Against the forces of these two warriors how unable is reason to bear up and withstand, every day's experience THE PRAISE OP FOLLY. 73 doth abundantly witness ; while let reason be never so importunate in urging and reinforcing her admonitions to virtue, yet the passions bear all before them, and by the least offer of curb or restraint grow but more impe- ri6us, 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 receipt of taking a wife, a creature so harm- less and silly, and yet so useful and convenient, as might mollify and make pliable the stiffness and morose humor of man. Now that which made Plato doubt under what genus to rank woman, whether among brutes or rational creatures, was only meant to denote the extreme stupid- ness 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 re- markable fools, such an endeavor, 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 proverb, That an ape will be an ape, though clad in purple : so a woman will be a woman, i. e. , a fool, whatever disguise she takes up. And yet there is no reason woman 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 sur- 74 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. pass and excel man; as first, for their unparalleled beauty, by the charm whereof they tyrannize over the greatest tyrants ; for what is it but too great a portion of wisdom that makes men so tawny and thick-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, as if nature had drawn them for a standing pattern of all sym- metry and comeliness? Beside, what greater or juster aim and ambition have they than to please their hus- bands? In order whereunto they garnish themselves with paint, washes, curls, perfumes, and all other mys- teries of ornament ; yet after all they become acceptable to them only for their Folly. Wives are always allowed their humor, yet it is only in exchange for titillation and pleasure, which indeed are but other names for Folly, as none can deny, who consider how a man must hug, and dandle, and caress, and play a hundred little tricks to please, interest and amuse his mistress. 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 not 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 blun- ders, 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, savory dishes, and Youth and Old Age the Matrimonial Chain. The Logician. THE PRAISE OP FOLLY. 79 toothsome rarities, if after all this epicurism of the belly, the eyes, the ears and the whole mind of man, were not as well fostered 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 drunkenness, the keeping every one his man, the throwing hey -jinks, the filling of bum- pers, 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 like riotous pastimes, these were not taught or dictated by any of the wise men of Greece, but of Gotham rather, being my invention, and by me prescribed as the best preservative of health : each of which, the more ridiculous it is, the more wel- come 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 gust in this sort of pleasure, but place their greatest content in the enjoyment of friends, telling us that true friendship is to be preferred before all other acquirements; that it is a thing so useful and necessary, as the very elements, which could not long subsist without a natural combina- tion ; 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 philosophers have not hesitated to place this as one among the rest of their different sentiments of the chiefest good. But what if I 80 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. make it appear that I also am the main spring and orig- inal of this endearment ? Yes, I can easily demonstrate it, and that not by crabbed syllogisms, or a crooked and unintelligible way of arguing, but can make it (as the proverb %QZ.S) 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 as virtuous and commendable, is not this the next door to the being a fool? When one looking steadfastly in his mistress's face, admires a mole as much as a beauty spot ; when another swears his lady's stinking breath is a most redo- lent perfume ; and at another time the fond parent hugs the squint-eyed child, and pretends it is rather a becom- ing 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, that they have very little of friendship ; nay, nothing of that which is true and hearty. The reason why men make a greater improvement in this virtue, is only because they are more credulous and easy natured ; for friends must be of the same humor and inclinations too, or else the league of amity, though made with never so many protestations, will soon be broken. Thus grave and morose men seldom prove fast friends ; they are too captious and consorious, and will not bear with one another's infirmities ; they are as eagle-sighted as may be in the espial of others' faults, The Plague of being a Nurse. THE PRAISE OF .FOLLY. 83 while they wink upon themselves, and never mind the beam in their own eyes. In short, man being by nature so prone to frailties, so humorsome and cross-grained, and guilty of so many slips and miscarriages, there could be no firm friendship contracted, except there be such an allowance made for each other's defaults which the Greeks term 'Evrfleia, and which we may construe good na- ture, which is but another word for Folly. And what ? Is not Cupid, that first father of all relation, is not he stark blind, and that as he cannot himself distinguish between colors, so he would make us as mope-eyed in judging falsely of all love concerns, and wheedle us into 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. 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 would oft sadly happen, were it not that man and wife were so discreet as to pass over 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 been guilty of? And how few 84 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 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 forwardness of his good-natured wife ? This peace and quietness is owing to my management, for there would otherwise be continual jars, and broils, and mad doings, if want of wit only did not at the same time make a contented cuckold and a still house. If the cuckoo sings 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 tortiired with the grating surmises of suspicion and jealousy. In fine, there is not one society, nor one relation men stand in, that would be comfortable, or indeed tolerable, with- out my assistance. There could be no right understand- ing betwixt prince and people, master 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 with small abuses, sneakingly cringe and submit, or after all fawningly caress and flat- ter 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 agree with a friend that has first fallen out with his own judgment? Or is it probable he should be any way pleasing to another, who is a perpetual plague and trouble to himself? This is such a paradox that none THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 85 can be so mad as to maintain. Well, but if I am ex- cluded and barred out, every man would be so far from being able to bear with others, that he would be bur- thensome to himself, and consequently incapable of any ease or satisfaction. Nature, that toward some of her products plays the step-mother rather than the indulgent parent, has endowed some men with that unhappy pee- vishness of disposition, as to nauseate and dislike what- ever 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 sullenness ? or what vigor in youth, if it be harassed with a pettish, dogged, waspish, ill humor ? None, whatever. Nor, indeed, can there be any creditable acquirement 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 sup- ported by self-love, which is but the elder sister (as it were) of Folly, and her own constant friend and assistant. For what is or can be more silly than to be lovers and admirers of ourselves ? And yet, if it were not so, there would be no relish to any of our words or actions. Take away this one attribute of a fool, and the orator shall become as dumb aud silent as the rostrum he stands on ; the musician shall hang up his untouched instruments on the wall ; the greatest actors shall be hissed off the stage; the poet shall be burlesqued with his own doggerel rhymes ; the painter shall himself vanish into an imag- inary landscape ; and the physician shall want food more than his patients do physic. In short, without self-love, 86 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. instead of beautiful, you shall think yourself an old bel- dam of fourscore ; instead of youthful, you shall seem just dropping into the grave ; instead of eloquent, a mere stammerer ; and in lieu of being gentle and complaisant, you shall appear like a downright country clown ; it being so necessary that every one should think well of themselves before they can expect the good opinion of others. Finally, when it is the main and essential part of hap- piness 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 conceit of their own, that no one repents of his shape, of his wit, of his education, or of his country ; thus the dirty, half drowned Hollander would not remove into the pleasant plains of Italy, the rude Thracian would not change his boggy soil for the best location in Athens, nor the brutish Scythian quit his thorny deserts to become an inhabitant of the Fortu- nate Islands. And, oh! the wonderful contrivances of nature, which 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 equal. 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 respective author and manager of: as first, what is more 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 The Fool in the Family. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 89 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 ac- tivity ? No, the only use is of blunt sturdy fellows that have little of wit, and so the more of resolution ; 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. But counsel, deliberation, and advice, say you, are very necessary for the management of war : very tme, but not such counsel as shall be pre- scribed by the strict rules of wisdom and justice ; for a battle shall be more successfully fought by serving-men, porters, bailiffs, padders, rogues, gaol-birds, and such like tag-rags of mankind, than by the most accomplished philosophers ; which last, how unhappy they are in the management of such concerns, Socrates, (by the oracle adjudged to be the wisest of mortals), is a notable exam- ple ; who when he appeared in the attempt of some pub- lic performance before the people, he faltered in the first onset, and could never recover himself, but was hooted and hissed home again ; yet this philosopher was the less a fool, for refusing the appellation of wise, and not ac- cepting the oracle's compliment ; as also for advising that no philosophers should have any hand in the govern- ment of the commonwealth ; he should have likewise, at the same time, added, they should be banished all human society. And what made this great man poison himself to prevent the malice of his accusers ? What made him the instrument of his own death, but only his excessive- ness of wisdom ? whereby, while he was searching into 90 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. the nature of clouds, while he was plodding and con- templating upon ideas, while he was exercising his geometry upon the measure of a flea, and diving into the recesses of nature, for an account how little insects, when they were so small could make so great a buzz and hum : while he was intent upon these fooleries he minded nothing of the world, or its ordinary concerns. Next to Socrates comes his scholar Plato, a famous orator indeed, that could be so abashed out of counte- nance by an illiterate rabble, as to demur, and hawk, and hesitate, before he could get to the end of one short sentence. Theophrastus was such another coward, who beginning to make an oration, was presently struck down with fear, as if he had seen some ghost or hobgoblin. Isocrates was so bashful and timorous, that though he taught rhetoric, yet he could never have the confidence to speak in public. Cicero, the master of Roman elo- quence, was wont to begin his speeches with a low, quivering voice, just like a school-boy, afraid of not say- ing his lesson perfect enough to escape whipping : and yet Fabius commends this property of Tully as an argu- ment of a considerate orator, sensible of the difficulty of acquitting himself with credit : but what hereby does he do more than plainly confess that wisdom is but ~ j rub and impediment to the well management of any affair? How would these heroes crouch, and shrink into nothing, at the sight of drawn swords, that are thus quashed and stunned at the delivery of bare words ? Now, then, let Plato's fine sentence be cried up, that "Jiappy are those commonwealths where either philoso- phers are elected kings, or kings turn philosophers." Personifying a Prince. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 93 Alas, this is so far from being true, that if we consult all historians for an account of past ages, we shall find no princes more weak, nor any people more slavish and wretched, than where the administration of affairs fell on the shoulders of some learned bookish governor. Of the truth whereof, the two Catos are exemplary instances : the first of which embroiled the city, and tired out the senate by his tedious harangues of defending himself and accusing others ; the younger was the unhappy oc- casion of the loss of the peoples' liberty, while by im- proper methods he pretended to maintain it. To these may be added Brutus, Cassius, the two Gracchi, and Cicero himself, who was no less fatal to Rome, than his parallel Demosthenes was to Athens : as likewise Marcus Antoninus, whom we may allow to have been a good emperor, yet the less such for his having been a philoso- pher ; and certainly he did not do half the kindness to his empire by his own prudent management of affairs, as he did mischief by leaving such a degenerate successor as his son Commodus proved to be ; but it is a com- mon observation, that A wise father has many times a foolish son, nature so contriving it, lest the taint of wis- dom, like hereditary distempers, should otherwise de- scend by propagation. Thus Tully's son Marcus, though bred at Athens, proved but a dull, insipid soul ; and Socrates, his children had (as one ingeniously expresses it) "more of the mother than the father," a phrase for their being fools. However, it were the more excusable, though wise men are so awkward and unhandy in the ordering of public affairs, if they were not so bad, or worse in the 94 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. management of their ordinary and domestic concerns ; but alas, here they have much to seek : for place a for- mal wise man at a feast, and he shall, either by his mo- rose silence put the whole table out of humor, or by his frivolous questions disoblige and tire out all that sit near him. Call him out to dance, and he shall move no more nimbly than a camel ; invite him to any public perform- ance, and by his very looks he shall damp the mirth of all the spectators, and at last be forced, like Cato, to leave the theatre, because he could not unstarch his gravity, and put on a more pleasant countenance. If he engage in any discourse, he either breaks off abruptly, or tires out the patience of the whole company if he goes on. If he have any contract, sale, or purchase to make, or any other worldly business to transact, he be- haves himself more like a senseless stock than a rational man ; so as he can be of no use nor advantage to himself, to his friends, or to his country; because he knows noth- ing how the world goes, and is wholly unacquainted with the humor of the vulgar, who cannot but hate a person so disagreeing in temper from themselves. And indeed the whole proceedings of the world are nothing but one continued scene of Folly, all the actors being equally fools and madmen ; and therefore if any be so pragmatically wise as to be singular, he must even turn a second Timon, or man-hater, and by retiring into some unfrequented desert, become a recluse from all mankind. But to return to what I first proposed, what was it in the infancy of the world that made men, naturally sav- age, unite into civil societies, but only flattery, one of THE PRAISE OF FOU.Y. 95 my cliiefest virtues ? For there is nothing else meant by the fables of Amphion and Orpheus with their harps ; the first making the stones jump into a well-built wall, the other inducing the trees to pull their legs out of the ground, and dance the morrice after him. What was it that quieted and appeased the Romar. people, when they broke out into a riot for the redress of grievances? Was it any formal starched oration? No, alas, it was only a silly, ridiculous story, told by Menenius Agrippa, how the other members of the body quarreled with the belly, resolving no longer to remain her drudging caterers, till by the penance they thought thus in revenge to impose, they soon found their own strength so far diminished that, realizing at the cost of experience their mistake, they willingly returned to their respective duties. Thus when the rabble of Athens murmured at the ex- action of the magistrates, Themistocles satisfied 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 offered his services to drive them away; u no," says the fox, "if these which are almost glutted be frighted off, there will come another hungry set that will be ten times more greedy and de- vouring : ' ' the moral of this he thought applicable to the people, who if they had such magistrates removed as they complained of for extortion, yet their successors would probably be worse. With what higher advances of policy could Sertorius have kept the barbarians so well in awe, as by a white 96 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. hart, which he pretended was presented to him by Diana, and brought him intelligence of all his enemies' designs ? What was Lycurgus's grand argument for demonstrating the force of education, but only by bringing out two whelps of the same bitch, differently brought up, and placing before them a dish of food 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, pres- ently 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 the hair from two horses' tails ; the first, pulling at all in one handful, tugged in vain ; while the other, though much the weaker, by snatching off the hairs one by one, soon performed his appointed task. Instances of like nature are Minos and king Numa, both of whom fooled the people into obedience by a mere cheat and juggle ; the first by pretending that he was advised by Jupiter, the latter by making the vulgar be- lieve that he had the goddess ^geria to assist him in all debates and transactions. 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 rigor- ous laws of Plate, to the severe injunctions of Aristotle, or the more impracticable tenets of Socrates ? No, these would have been too 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 sacrifice for an THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 97 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 vainglory, that is condemned, and unanimously voted for a main branch of folly by all wise met} ? What is more unreasonable and foppish (say they) than for any man, out of ambition to some office, to bow, to scrape and cringe to the gaping rabble, to purchase their favor by bribes and donatives, to have their 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 put up in the market place for a monument of their popularity ? Add to this, the affectation of new titles and distinct- ive badges of honor ; nay, the very deifying of such as were the most bloody tyrants. These are so extremely ridiculous, that there is need of more than one Democri- tus to laugh at them. And yet hence only have been occasioned those memorable achievements of heroes, that have so much employed the pens of many laborious writers. It is Folly that in a varied dress, governs cities, ap- points 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 urged on by the bub- bling hopes of credit and reputation? They think a little glittering flash of vainglory is a sufficient reward 98 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. for all their sweat and toil, and tedious drudgery, while they that are supposedly more foolish, reap advantage of the others' labors. And now since I have made good my title to valor and industry, what if I challenge an equal share of wisdom ? How ! you will say, this 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 wisdom (as must be confessed) is no more than a readiness of doing good, and an expeditious 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 pro- ceed 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 prospect of danger? In the undertaking of any enterprise the wise man shall run to consult with his books, and daze himself with poring over musty authors, whilst the dispatchful fool shall rush blindly 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 be- fore men's eyes, and fear, which makes them shrink back, and recede from any proposal : both these are banished by Folly, and in their stead such a habit of fool-hardiness introduced, as mightily contributes to the success of all enterprises. Farther, if you will have wisdom taken in the other sense, of being a right judg- THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 99 ment of things, you shall see how short wise men fall of it in this acceptation. First, then, it is certain that all things, like so many Jan us' s, carry a double face, or rather bear a false aspect, most things being really in themselves far different from what they are in appearance to others : so 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 stand 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 hand he has poverty of spirit enough to make him a mere beggar, and on the other side he is worse than a galley-slave to his own lusts and passions. If I had a mind further 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 IOO THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 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 disturb- ance 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. 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 com- edy, 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 otherwise 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 indeed 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 mas- tership 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, Fools have the Privilege of Speaking the Truth. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 103 so is there nothing more indiscreet than an unreasonable reproof. And therefore he is to be hooted out of all society that will not be pliable, conformable, and willing to suit his humor 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 consider that he is but a man, and therefore he should not pitch his soaring thoughts beyond the level of mortality, but clip the wings of his towering ambition, and obligingly submit and condescend to the weakness of others, it being many times a piece of com- plaisance 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 req- uisite to invoke the aid of the muses, to whom the poets devoutly apply themselves upon far more slender occa- sions. Come then and assist, ye Heliconian lasses, while I attempt to prove that there is no method for an arrival at wisdom, and 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 ac- knowledged that all the passions are enlisted under my regiment, since this is resolved to be the only distinction betwixt a wise man and a fool, that the latter is governed by passion, the other guided by reason ; and therefore the Stoics look upon passions as no other than the in- 104 TH E PRAISE OF FOLLY. faction and malady of the soul that disorders the consti- tution of the whole man, and by putting the spirits into a feverish ferment, occasions many times some mortal distemper. And yet these, however decried, are not only our tutors to instruct us towards the attainment of wis- dom, but even embolden 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 unman him, or else transform him into some fabulous deity that never was, nor ever will be ; nay, to speak more plainly, it is but the making him a mere statue, immovable, senseless, and altogether in- active. And if this be their wise man, let them take him to themselves, and remove him into Plato's common- wealth, 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 monopolizes 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 perfectly wise man. But prithee, what city would choose such a magistrate? THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 107 what army would be willing to serve under such a com- mander? or what woman would be content with such an incompetent husband. Who would invite such a guest? or what servant would be retained under such a master ? The most illiterate mechanic would in all respects be a more acceptable man, for he 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 other topics. And now were any one placed on that tower, from whence Jove is fancied by the poets to survey the world, he would discern all around how many grievances and calamities our whole life is on every side encompassed with : how unclean our birth, how troublesome our tend- ance in the cradle, how liable our childhood is to a thou- sand 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 unhappy acci- dents may casually occur, how many unexpected disas- ters 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, reproach, revenge, treachery, malice, cousenage, deceit, and so many more, as to reckon them all would be as puzzling arithmetic as the numbering of the sands. How mankind became environed with such hard cir- cumstances, or what deity imposed these plagues, as a penance on rebellious mortals, I am not now at leisure IO8 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. to enquire : but whoever seriously takes them into con- sideration must needs commend the value 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 execution- ers : 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, refused the enticing proposal, as deservedly thinking it a punishment rather than a reward. But if all were thus wise you see how soon the world would be unpeopled, and what need there would be of a second Prometheus, to plaster up the decayed image of mankind. I therefore come and stand in this gap of danger, and prevent farther mischief; partly by igno- rance, partly by inadvertence ; by the oblivion of what- ever would be grating to remember, and the hopes of whatever may be grateful to expec"l, 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 hardly can be 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 stooping toward the dust they must shortly return to; \ The Begging Friar. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. Ill 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 there- fore fence off the attacks of death with all imaginable sleights and impostures ; one shall dye his gray hairs, for fear their color should 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 per- haps shall fall deeply in love with a young girl, and accordingly court her with as much of gaiety and brisk- ness 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 has become the a-la-mode of the times. And what is yet more comical, you shall have some wrinkled old woman, whose very looks are a sufficient antidote to lechery, that shall be canting out, "Ah, life is a sweet thing -," and so run a caterwauling, and hire some strong-backed suitors to recover their almost lost sense of feeling ; 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 vulgar jest, dance among the young girls, write love-letters, and do all the other knacks of attracting hot-blooded suitors ; and in the meanwhile, however they are laughed at, they enjoy themselves to the full, live to their hearts' desire, and want for nothing that may complete their happiness. 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 112 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 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 not otherwise 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 ; because he goes not on all fours as beasts of the field ; 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, be- cause he was never taught his grammar ; and an ox mis- erable, because he never learned to fence. But, sure as a horse, though not knowing a letter is nevertheless val- uable, so a man, for being a fool, is never the more un- fortunate, it being by nature and providence so ordained for each. Ay, but (say our patrons of wisdom) the knowledge of arts and sciences is purposely attainable by men, that the defect of natural parts maybe supplied by the help of those acquired : as if it were probable that nature, which The First Scene of Infancy. The Lawyer. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 115 has been so exact and curious in the mechanism of flow- ers, herbs, and flies, should have bungled most in her masterpiece, and made man as it were by halves, to be afterward 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 the end that they were first designed for, which was the improvement of memory, as Plato in his Phsedrus doth 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 collected from every man's com- mon sense, improved by an easy experience. What use could there have 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 wise to enter into any dispute? or what occasion for rhetoriofwhere no difference arose to require any labori- ous 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 objecl of their wonder, than their curiosity ; and therefore were not so presumptuous as to dive into the depths of nature, to labor for the solving of all phenom- ena in astronomy, or to wrack their brains in the split- ting of entities, and unfolding the nicest speculations, judging it a crime for any man to aim at what is put beyond the reach of his shallow apprehension. Il6 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. Thus was ignorance, in the infancy of the world, as much the parent of happiness as it has since been of de- votion ; but as soon as the golden age began by degrees to degenerate into the more common 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 work of an age to be thoroughly acquainted with all the criticisms in grammar only. And among all the several Arts, those are proportionably most es- teemed that come nearest to weakness and folly. For thus divines may bite their nails, and naturalists may blow their fingers, astrologers may know their own for- tune is to be poor, and the logician may shut his fist $nd 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 confidence, though the least skill, shall be sure of the greatest cus- tom ; and indeed this whole art as it is now practised, is but one incorporated compound of craft and imposture. Next to the physician comes the lawyer, (who will perhaps commence a suit with me for not having beea first mentioned), who is so silly as to be, proverbially, an ignoramus, and yet by such are all difficulties solved, all controversies determined, and all affairs managed so much to their own advantage, that they get those estates to themselves which they are employed to recover for their clients : while in the mean time the poor divine shall have the lice crawl upon his thread-bare gown, The Old Man Spruced Up. The Old Woman Spmced up. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 131 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 per- sons incomparably 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 all finite beings. Nature glitters most in her own plain, homely garb, and then gives the greatest lustre when she is unsullied from all artificial garnish. Thus if we enquire into the state of all dumb creatures, we shall find that those fare best that are left to nature's conduct : as for instance in bees, what is more to be ad- mired than the industry and contrivance of these little insects ? What architect could ever form so curious a structure as they give a model of in their inimitable combs? What kingdom 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 worst of tyranny. He is sometimes spurred on to battle when wounded so severely that his intestines drag after him, and, falling, he bites the ground instead of grass ; not to mention the cruelty of his jaws being curbed, his tail docked, his back wrung, his sides spur-galled, his close imprisonment in a stable, and a great many other plagues, which he might have avoided if he had kept to that first station of freedom in which nature placed him. How much more desirable is the unconfined range of 122 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. flies and birds, who living by instinct, would want noth- ing 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 purpose of learning them to sing or whistle, all their new tunes make not half such 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 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 judg- ment in this censure, that "Man was the most wretched and deplorable of all creatures, all others patiently graz- ing 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 adjuged wiser than the much counseling Ulysses, inas- much as when by the enchantment of Circe he had been turned into a hog, he would not lay down his swinish- ness, nor forsake his beloved sty, to run the peril of a hazardous voyage. For a farther 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 un- happy, 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 The Capuchin. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 125 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 with- out 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. As namely, can there be any one sort of men that enjoy themselves better than those which we call changelings, idiots, fools, and naturals ? It may perhaps sound harsh, but upon due consideration it will be found absolutely true, that these persons in all circumstances fare best, and live most comfortably ; as 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 con- science ; they are not frighted with any bugbear stories of another world ; they startle not at the fancied appear- ance of ghosts, or apparitions ; they are not wracked with the dread of impending mischiefs, nor bandied with the hopes of any expected 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 ambition, envy, and love ; and to add the reversion of a future happiness to the enjoyment of a present one, they have no sin neither to answer for ; divines unanimously maintaining 126 THE PRAISE OF that a gross and unavoidable ignorance does not only extenuate and abate from the aggravation, but wholly expiates the guilt of any immorality. Come now then as many of you as challenge the re- spect of being accounted wise, ingenuously confess how many insurrections of rebellious thoughts, and pangs of a laboring mind, ye are perpetually vexed 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 these 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 na- ture 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 purpose- ly designed them for an antidote to melancholy: where- by 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 any- thing ; so well beloved, that none dares to offer them the least injury ; nay, the most ravenous beasts of prey will pass them by untouched, 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 attendance ; nay, and had much rather have their company, than that of their gravest counselors, 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 The Commentator. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 129 last, by their harsh, sour advice, and ill-timing the truth, are fit only to put a prince out of humor, while the others laugh, and talk, and joke, without any danger of dis- obliging. It is another very commendable property of fools, that they always speak the truth, than which there is nothing more noble and heroical. For so, though Plato relates 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 ax- iom itaopu {i&pos Aeyst, children and fools always speak the truth. Whatever the fool has in his heart he betrays it in his face: or what is more evident, discovers it 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 times require : whereby he can in a trice so alter his judgment, as to prove that to be now white, which he had just before sworn 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 deart he means another. Futhermore, princes in their greatest splendor seem upon this account unhappy, in that they miss the advan- tage 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 130 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. therefore wise men must be very cautious how they be- have themselves before them, lest they should take too great a liberty in speaking what is true, rather than what is acceptable. This much must be confessed, that 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 pardoned, but welcomed 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 be- stowed only on fools. ' Tis for the same reason that this sort of men are more fondly beloved by women, who like their tumbling them about, and playing with them though never so boister- ously ; 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 wanton inclinations. But to retnrn. An additional happiness of these fools appears farther in this, that when they have run merrily on to their last stage of life, they neither find any fear nor feel any pain to die, but march contentedly to the other world, where their company must surely be as ac- ceptable as it was here upon earth. Let us draw now a comparison between the condition of a fool and that of a wise man, and see how infinitely the one outweighs the other. The Daily Tally of Psalms. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 133 Give me any instance then, of a man as wise as you can fancy him possible to be, that has spent all his younger years in poring over books, and trudging after learning, in the pursuit whereof he squanders away the pleasantest time of his life in watching, sweating, and fasting ; and in his latter days he never tastes one mouth- ful of delight, but is always stingy, poor, dejected, mel- ancholy, 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 rose-buds plucked before they bloom. Thus have you a picture of the wise man's happiness more the object of commiseration and pity, than of jeal- ousy and envy. But now again come the croaking Stoics, and tell me in mood and figure, that nothing is more miserable than the being mad : but the being a 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 ac- tions 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 Phaedon ranks the madness of poets, 134 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 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 yoii will proceed to these your mad attempts. And indeed there is a two-fold sort of madness ; the one that which the furies bring from hell ; those that are herewith possessed, are hurried on to wars and conten- tions, by an inexhaustible thirst of power and riches, inflamed to some infamous and unlawful lust, enraged to acl the parricide, seduced to become guilty of incest, sac- rilege, 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 re- morse. But there is another sort of madness that pro- ceeds from Folly, so far from being any way injurious or distasteful that it is thoroughly good and desirable ; and this happens when by a harmless mistake in the judg- ment of things the mind is freed from those cares which would otherwise gratingly afflict it, and smoothed over with a content and satisfaction it could not under other circumstances so happily enjoy. And, this is that comfortable apathy or insensibleness which Cicero, in an epistle to his friend Atticus, wishes himself master of, that he might the less take to heart those insufferable outrages committed by the tyrannizing triumvirate, Lepidus, Antonius, and Augustus. That Grecian likewise had a happy time of it, who was so frantic as to sit a whole day in an empty theatre laughing, shouting, and clapping his hands, as if he had really seen some pathetic tragedy acted to the life, when indeed all was no more than the strength of The Last shall be First, and the First, Last. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 139 imagination, and the effects of delusion, while in all other respects the same person behaved himself very discreetly, was Sweet to his friends, to his wife, obliging, kind, And so averse from a revengeful mind, That had his men unsealed his bottled wine, He would not fret, nor doggedly repine. And when by a course of physic he was recovered from this frenzy, he looked upon his cure so far from a kindness, that he thus reasons the case with his friends: This remedy, my friends, is worse i' tK main Than the disease, the cure augments the pain ; My only hope is a relapse again. And certainly they were the more mad of the two who endeavored tp bereave him of so pleasing a delirium, and recall all the aches of his head by dispelling the mists of his brain. I have not yet determined whether it be proper to in- clude all the defects of sense and understanding under the common genius of madness. For if anyone be so short-sighted as to take a mule for an ass, or so shallow- pated as to admire a paltry ballad for an elegant poem, he is not thereupon immediately censured as mad. But if anyone let not only his senses but his judgment be imposed upon in the most ordinary common concerns, he shall come under the scandal of being thought next door to a madman. As suppose any one should hear an ass bray, and should take it for ravishing music ; or if any one, born a beggar, should fancy himself as great as a prince, or the like. But this sort of madness, if (as is 140 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. most usual) it be accompanied with pleasure, brings a great satisfaction both to those who are possessed with it themselves, and those who deride it in others, though they are not both equally frantic. And this species of madness is of larger extent than the world commonly imagines. Thus the whole tribe of madmen make spor*; among themselves, while one laughs at another ; he that is more mad many times jeering him that is less so. But indeed the greater each man's madness is, the greater is his happiness, if it be but such a sort as pro- ceeds from an excess of folly, which is so epidemical a distemper that it is hard to find any one man so uninfec- led as not to have sometimes a fit or two of some sort of frenzy. There is only this difference between the several patients : He that shall take a broom-stick for a straight- bodied woman is without more ado sentenced for a mad- man, because this is so strange a blunder as very seldom happens ; whereas he whose wife is a common jilt, that keeps a warehouse free for all customers, and yet swears she is as chaste as an untouched virgin, and hugs him- self in his contented mistake, is scarce taken notice of, because he fares no worse than a great many more of his good-natured neighbors. Among these are to be ranked such as take an immoderate delight in hunting, and think no music comparable to the sounding of horns and the yelping of beagles ; and were they to take physic, would without question think the most sovereign virtues to be in the album Grcscum of a dog's excrements. When they have run down their game, what strange pleasure they take in cutting of it up ! Cows and sheep may be slaughtered by common butchers, but what is The Lazy Wretch. THE PRAISE OF FOLI,Y. 143 killed in hunting must be broken up by none under a gentleman, who shall throw down his hat, fall devoutly on his knees, and drawing out a slashing hanger (for a common knife is not good enough), after several ceremo- nies shall dissect all the parts as artificially as the best anatomist, while all that stand round shall look very in- tently, and seem to be mightily surprised with the nov- elty, though they have seen the same an hundred times before ; and he that can but dip his finger, and taste of the blood, shall think his own bettered by it ; and though the constant feeding on such diet does but assim- ilate them to the nature of those beasts they eat of, yet they will swear that venison is meat for princes, and that their living upon it makes them as great as emperors. Near akin to these are such as take a great fancy for building. They raise up, pull down, begin anew, alter the model, and never rest till they run themselves out of their whole estate, taking up such a compass for buildings, till they leave themselves not one foot of land to live upon, nor one poor cottage to shelter themselves from cold and hunger ; and yet all the while are mighty proud of their contrivances, and sing a sweet requiem to their own happiness. To these are to be added those plodding virtuosos, that plunder the most inward recesses of nature for the pillage of a new invention, and rake over sea and land for the turning up some hitherto latent mystery ; and are so continually tickled with the hopes of success, that they spare for no cost nor pains, but trudge on, and upon a defeat in one attempt, courageously tack about to an- 144 TH E PRAISE OF FOLLY. other, and fall upon new experiments, never giving over till they have calcined their whole estate to ashes, and have not money enough left unmelted to purchase one crucible or limbeck. And yet after all, they are not so much discouraged, but that they dream fine things still, and influence others all they can to the like undertak- ings ; nay, when their hopes come to the last gasp, after all their disappointments, they have yet one salvo for their credit, that : In great exploits our bare attempts suffice. And so inveigh against the shortness of their life, which allows them not time enough to bring their designs to maturity and perfection. Whether dice-players may be so favorably dealt with as to be admitted among the rest, is scarce yet resolved upon : but sure it is hugely vain and ridiculous, when we see some persons so devoutly addicted to this diver- sion, that at the first rattle of the box their heart shakes within them, and keeps consort with the motion of the dice: they are egged on so long with the hopes of always winning, till at last, in a literal sense, they have thrown away their whole estate, and made shipwreck of all they have, scarce escaping to shore with their own clothes to their backs ; thinking it in the meanwhile a great piece of religion to be just in the payment of their stakes, and will cheat any creditor sooner than him who trusts them in play : and that poring old men, that cannot tell their cast without the help of spectacles, should be sweating at the same sport ; nay, that such decrepit blades, as by the gout have lost the use of their fingers, should look over, and hire others to throw for them. This indeed The Dice Players. Profusely Lavish in Charity. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 149 is prodigiously extravagant ; but the consequence of it ends so oft in downright madness, that it seems rather to belong to the furies than to folly. The next to be placed among the regiment of fools are such as make a trade of telling or enquiring after incred- ible stories of miracles and prodigies : never doubting that a lie will choke them, they will muster up a thou- sand several strange relations of spirits, ghosts, appari- tions, raising of the devil, and such like bugbears of superstition, which the farther they are from being prob- ably true, the more greedily they are swallowed, and the more devoutly believed. And these absurdities do not only bring an empty pleasure, and cheap divertisement, but they procure a comfortable income to such priests and friars as by this craft get their gain. To these again are nearly related such others as attribute strange virtues to the shrines and images of saints and martyrs, and so would make their credulous proselytes believe, that if they pay their devotion to St. Christopher in the morn- ing, they shall be guarded and secured the day follow- ing from all dangers and misfortunes : if soldiers, when they first take arms, shall come and mumble over such a set prayer before the picture of St. Barbara, they shall return safe from all engagements : or if any pray to Eras- mus on such particular holidays, with the ceremony of wax candles, and other fopperies, he shall in a short time be rewarded with a plentiful increase of wealth and riches. The Christians have now their gigantic St. George, as well as the Pagans had their Hercules ; they paint the saint on horseback, and picture the horse in splendid trappings, very gloriously accoutred, they 150 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. scarce refrain in a literal sense from worshiping the very beast. What shall I say of such as cry up and maintain the cheat of pardons and indulgences ? that by these com- pute the time of each soul's residence in purgatory, and assign them a longer or shorter continuance, according as they purchase more or fewer of these paltry pardons, and saleable exemptions ? Or what can be said bad enough of others, who pretend that by the force of such magical charms, or by the fumbling over their beads in the rehearsal of such and such petitions (which some re- ligious impostors invented, either for diversion, or what is more likely, for advantage), they shall procure riches, honor, pleasure, health, long life, a lusty old age, nay, after death a sitting at the right hand of our Saviour in His kingdom ; though as to this last part of their happi- ness, they care not how long it be deferred, having scarce any appetite toward a tasting the joys of heaven, till they are surfeited, glutted with, and can no longer relish their enjoyments on earth. By this easy way of purchasing pardons, any notorious highwayman, any plundering soldier, or any bribe-taking judge, shall disburse some part of their unjust gains, and so think all their grossest impieties sufficiently atoned for ; so many perjuries, lusts, drunkenness, quarrels, bloodsheds, cheats, treacheries, and all sorts of debauch- eries, shall all be, as it were, struck a bargain for, and such a contract made, as if they had paid off all arrears, and might now begin upon a new score. And what can be more ridiculous, than for some others to be confident of going to heaven by repeating daily St. Bernard and the Devil. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 153 those seven verses out of the Psalms, which the devil taught St. Bernard, thinking thereby to have put a trick upon him, but that he was over-reached in his cunning. Several of these fooleries, which are so gross and ab- surd, as I myself am even ashamed to own, are practised and admired, not only by the vulgar, but by such profi- cients in religion as one might well expect should have more wit. The custom of each country challenging their particu- lar guardian-saint, proceeds from the same principles of folly ; nay, each saint has his distinct office allotted to him, and is accordingly addressed to upon the respective occasions : as one for the tooth-ache, a second to grant an easy delivery in child-birth, a third to recover lost goods, another to protect seamen in a long voyage, a fifth to guard the farmer's cows and sheep, and so on; for to rehearse all instances would be extremely tedious. There are some more catholic saints petitioned to upon all occasions, as more especially the Virgin Mary, whose blind devotees think it manners now to place the mother before the son. And of all the prayers and intercessions that are made to these respective saints, the substance of them is no more than downright Folly. Among all the trophies that for tokens of gratitude are hung upon the walls and ceilings of churches, you shall find no relics presented as a memorandum of any that were ever cured of Folly, or had been made one dram the wiser. One perhaps after shipwreck got safe to shore ; another recovered when he had been run through by an enemy ; one, when all his fellow-soldiers 154 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. were killed upon the spot, as cunningly perhaps as cow- ardly, made his escape from the field ; another, while he was a hanging, the rope broke, and so he 'saved his neck, and renewed his license for practicing his old trade of thieving ; another broke jail, and got loose ; a patient (against his physician's will) recovered of a dangerous fever ; another drank poison, which putting him into a violent looseness, did his body more good than harm, to the great grief of his wife, who hoped upon this occasion to have become a joyful widow ; another had his wagon overturned, and yet none of his horses lamed ; another had caught a grievous fall, and yet recovered from the bruise ; another had been tampering with his neighbor's wife, and escaped very narrowly from being caught by the enraged cuckold in the very act. After all these acknowledgments of escapes from such singular dangers, there is none (as I have before intimated) that returns thanks for being freed from Folly ; Folly being so sweet and luscious, that it is rather sued for as a happiness, than deprecated as a punishment. But why should I launch out into so wide a sea of superstitions ? Had I as many tongues as Argus eyes, Briareus hands, they all would not suffice Folly in all her shapes f epitomize. Almost all Christians being wretchedly enslaved to blindness and ignorance, which the priests are so far from preventing or removing, that they blacken the darkness, and promote the delusion ; wisely foreseeing that the people (like cows, which never give down their milk so well as when they are gently stroked), would part with less if they knew more, their bounty proceed- The Actor. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 157 ing only from a mistake of charity. Now if any grave, wise man should stand up, and unseasonably speak the truth, telling every one that a pious life is the only way of securing a happy death ; that the best title to a pardon of our sins is purchased by a hearty abhorrence of our guilt, and sincere resolutions of amendment ; that the best devotion which can be paid to any saints is to imi- tate them in their exemplary life ; if he should proceed thus to inform them of their several mistakes, there would be quite another estimate put upon tears, watch- ings, 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 descent 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 158 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 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 tran- scripts 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 unconcerned lives themselves, but there are not wanting others too who cry up these brutes as almost equal to the gods. But why should I dwell upon one or two instances 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 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 has of playing on the organ : and another, that rattles in the throat as hoarse as a cock crows, shall be proud of his voice, and think that he sings like a nightingale. There is another very pleasant sort of madness, whereby persons assume to themselves whatever of ac- complishment they discern in others. Thus the happy rich churl in Seneca, who had so short a memory, that The Grammarian. The Restorative of Youth. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 163 he could not tell the least story without a servant stand- ing 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 acccept 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 profess- ors of arts and sciences, who are all so egregiously con- ceited, that they would sooner give up their title to an estate in lands, than part with the reversion of their wits : among these, more especially stage-players, mu- sicians, 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 there- fore every one, the more ignorant he is, the greater sat- isfaction he is to himself, and the more commended by others, to what purpose is it to sweat and toil in the pur- suit 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 himself, and less acceptable to others ? As nature ,in her dispensation of conceitedness 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 prerog- ative of having the most handsome women, of being the most accomplished in the science of music, and of keep- ing the best tables. The Scotch brag of their gentility, 164 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. and pretend the genius of their native soil inclines them to be good disputants. The French think themselves remarkable for complaisance and good breeding ; the Sorbonists of Paris pretend before any others to have made the greatest proficiency in polemic divinity. The Italians value themselves for learning and eloquence ; and, like the Grecians of old, account all the world bar- barians compared to themselves; 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 deserv- edly famous for. The Venitians 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 philos- ophers. The Turks, and all the other refuse of Ma- hometanism, 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, 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 addi- tion to the happiness of human life is occasioned by self- love : the next step to which is flattery ; for as self-love is nothing but the coaxing up of ourselves, so the same currying and humoring of others is termed flattery. Flattery, it is true, is now looked upon as a scandalous name, but it is by such only as mind words more than THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 167 things. They are prejudiced against it upon this account, because they suppose it jostles out all truth and sincerity, whereas indeed its property is quite contrary, as appears from the examples of several brute creatures. What is more fawning than a spaniel ? And yet what animal is more faithful to its master ? What is more fond and loving than a tame squirrel? And yet what is more sportive and inoffensive? This little frisking creature is kept up in a cage to play withal, while lions, tigers, leopards, and such other savage emblems of rapine and cruelty are shown only for their great rarity, and other- wise yield no pleasure to their respective keepers. There is indeed a pernicious and destructive sort of flattery wherewith rookers and sharks work their several ends upon such as they can make a prey of, by decoying them into traps and snares beyond recovery. But that which is the effect of folly is of a very different nature ; it proceeds from a softness of spirit, and a flexibleness of good humor, and comes far nearer to virtue than that other extreme of friendship, namely, a stiff, sour, dogged moroseness : it refreshes our minds when tired, enlivens them when melancholy, reinforces them when languish- ing, invigorates them when heavy, recovers them when sick, and pacifies them when rebellious : it puts us in a method of procuring friends, and learns us how to keep them ; it entices children to swallow the bitter rudiments of learning ; it gives a new ferment to the almost stag- nated souls of old men ; it both reproves and inculcates principles without offence under the mask of commenda- tion : in short, it makes every man fond and indulgent of himself, which is indeed no small part of each man's 1 68 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. happiness, and at the same time renders him obliging and complaisant in all company, where it is pleasant to see how the asses rub and scratch one another. This again is a great accomplishment to an orator, a greater to a physician, and the only one to a poet : in fine, it is the best sweetener to all afflictions, and gives a true relish to the otherwise insipid enjoyments of our whole life. "Aye," (say you) " to flatter is to deceive ; to deceive is very wrong and hurtful." No, rather just the reverse ; nothing is more welcome and bewitching than the being deceived. They are much to be blamed for an undistinguishing head, that make a judgment of things according to what they are in themselves, when their whole nature consists barely in the opinions that are had of them. For all sublinary matters are enveloped in such a cloud of obscurity, that the short-sightedness of human understanding, cannot pry through nor arrive at any comprehensive knowledge of them : hence the sect of academic philosophers have modestly resolved, that all things being no more than probable, nothing can be known as certain ; or if there could, yet it would but interrupt and abate from the pleasure of a more happy gnorance. Finally, our souls are so fashioned and moulded, that they are sooner captivated by appearances than by real truths ; of which, if any one would demand an example, he may find a familiar one in churches, where, if what is delivered from the pulpit be a grave, solid, rational discourse, all the congregation grow weary and fall asleep, till their patience be released ; whereas, if the preacher (pardon the impropriety of the word, the The Two Asses. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 171 prater I should have said) be zealous, in his thumps of the cushion, his antic gestures, and spends his time in the telling of pleasant stories, his beloved shall then stand up, tuck their hair behind their ears, and be very devoutly attentive. So among the saints, those are most resorted to who are most romantic and fabulous : as for instance, a poetic St. George, a St. Christopher, or a St. Barbara, shall be oftener prayed to than St. Peter, St. Paul, nay, perhaps than Christ himself ; but this, it is possible, may more probably be referred to another place. In the mean while observe what a cheap purchase of happiness is made by the strength of fancy. For whereas many things even of inconsiderable value, would cost a great deal of pains and perhaps pelf, to procure ; opinion spares charges, and yet gives us them in as ample a manner by conceit, as if we possessed them in reality. Thus he who feeds on such a stinking dish of fish, as another must hold his nose at a yard's distance from, yet if he feed heartily, and relish them palatably, they are to him as good as if they were freshly caught ; whereas, on the other hand, if any one be invited to never so dainty a joul of sturgeon, if it go against his stomach to eat any, he may sit a hungry, and bite his nails with greater appetite than his victuals. If a woman be never so ugly and nauseous, yet if her husband can but think her handsome, it is all one to him as if she really were so : if any man have never so ordinary and disagreeable a drawing, yet if he admires the excellency of it, and can suppose it to have been drawn by some old Apelles, or modern Vandyke, he is as proud of it as if it had really 172 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. been drawn by one of them. I knew a friend of mine that presented his bride with several false and counterfeit stones, making her believe that they were real jewels, and cost him many hundred thousand crowns. Under this impression the deluded woman was as choice of peb- bles and painted glass, as if they had been so many nat- ural rubies and diamonds, while the subtle husband saved a large amount in his pocket, and yet made his wife as well pleased as if he had been at ten hundred times the cost. What difference is there between them that in the darkest dungeon can with a platonic brain survey the whole world in idea, and him that stands in the open air, and takes a less deluding prospect of the universe ? If the beggar in L,ucian, that dreamt he was a prince, had never waked, his imaginary kingdom had been as great as a real one. Between him therefore that truly is happy, and him that thinks himself so, there is no perceivable distinction ; or if any, the fool has the better of it : first, because his happiness costs him less, standing him only in the price of a single thought ; and then, secondly, because he has more fellow- companions and partakers of his good fortune ; for no enjoyment is desirable where the benefit is not imparted to others ; nor is any one station in life desirable, where we can have no converse with persons of the same con- dition with ourselves : and yet this is the hard fate of wise men, who are grown so scarce, that like the fabled Phoenix, but one appears in an age. The Grecians, it is true, reckoned up seven within the narrow precints of their own country ; yet I believe, were they to cast up their accounts anew, they would not Imaginary Excellence. The Juice Yielding Grape. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 177 find a half, nay, not a third part, of one in far larger extent. Farther, when among the several good properties of Bacchus this is looked upon as the chief, namely, thaf he drowns the cares and anxieties of the mind, though it be indeed but for a short time ; for after a small nap, when our brains are a little settled, they all return to their former corrodings. How much greater is the more durable advantage which I bring? while by one uninter- rupted state of being drunk in conceit, I perpetually cajole the mind with riots, revels, and all the excess and energy of joy. Add to this, that I am so communicative and bounti- ful, as to let no one particular person pass without some token of my favor ; whereas other deities bestow their gifts sparingly to their elect only. Bacchus has not thought fit that every soil should bear the same juice- yielding grape : Venus has not given to all a like portion of beauty : Mercury endows but few with the gift of a persuasive eloquence : Hercules gives not to all the same measure of wealth and power : Jupiter has destined but a few to inherit a kingdom : Mars in battle gives but to one party a complete victory ; and often he makes them both losers : Apollo answers not the expectations of all who consult his oracles : Jove oft thunders : Phoebus sometimes shoots the plague or some other infectious disease at the point of his darts: and Neptune swallows down remorselessly many who trust his treacherous waves : not to mention their Ve-Jupiters, their Plutos, their Ate, goddess of loss, their evil gen- iuses, and such other monsters of divinity, as had more 178 THE PRAISE OF FOIAY. of the hangman than the god in them, and were wor- shiped only to deprecate that hurt which used to be in- flicted by them : I say, not to mention these, I am that high and mighty goddess, whose liberality is of as large an extent as her omnipotence : I give to all that ask : I never appear sullen, nor out of humor, nor ever demand any atonement or satisfaction for the omission of any ceremonious punctilio in my worship : I do not storm or rage, if mortals, in their addresses to the other gods pass me by unregarded, without the acknowledgment of any respect or application : whereas all the other gods are so scrupulous and exact, that it often proves less dan- gerous manfully to despise them, than sneakingly to attempt the difficulty of pleasing them. Thus some men are of that captious, perverse humor, that a man had better be wholly strangers to them, than never so intimate friends. Well, but there are none (say you) who build any altars, or dedicate any temple to Folly. I am surprised (as I have before intimated) that the world should be so wretchedly ungrateful. But I am so good-natured as to pass by and pardon this seeming affront, though indeed the charge thereof, as unnecessary, may well be saved ; for to what purpose should I demand the sacrifice of frankincense, cakes, goats, and swine, since all persons everywhere pay me that more acceptable service, which all divines agree to be more effectual and meritorious, namely, an imitation of my various attributes? I do not therefore envy Diana for having her altars bedewed with human blood : I think myself then most religiously adored, when my respective devotees (as is their usual The Worship of Descent. An Apostle. The Strength of Fancy. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 183 custom) conform themselves to my practice, transcribe my pattern, and so live the copy of me their original. And truly this pious devotion is not so much in use among Christians as is much to be wished it were : for how many zealous votaries are there that pay so profound a respect to the Virgin Mary, as to place lighted tapers even at noon day upon her altars ? And yet how few of them copy after her untouched chastity, her modesty, and her other commendable virtues, in the imitation whereof consists the truest esteem of divine worship ? Farther, why should I desire a temple, since the whole world is but one ample continued choir, entirely dedica- ted to my use and service ? Nor do I want worshipers at any place where the earth wants not inhabitants. And as to the manner of my worship, I am not yet so irrecoverably foolish, as to be prayed to by proxy, and to have my honor intermediately bestowed upon sense- less images and pictures, which quite subvert the true end of religion ; while the unwary supplicants seldom distinguish betwixts the things themselves and the ob- jects they represent. The same respect in the meanwhile is paid to me in a more legitimate manner ; for to me there are as many statues erected as there are moving fabrics of mortality ; every person, even against his own will, carrying the image of me, i.e., the seal of Folly instamped upon his countenance. I have not therefore the least tempting inducement to envy the more seeming state and splendor of the other gods, who are worshiped at set times and places ; as Phoebus at Rhodes, Venus in her Cyprian isle, Juno in 184 THE PRAISE OF the city of Argos, Minerva at Athens, Jupiter on the hill Olympus, Neptune at Tarentum, and Priapus in the town of L,ampsacum ; while my worship extending as far as my influence, the whole world is my one altar, whereon the most valuble incense and sacrifice is perpet- ually offered up. But lest I should seem to speak this with more of con- fidence than truth, let us take a nearer view of the mode of men's lives, whereby it will be rendered more appar- ently evident what largesses I everywhere bestow, and how much I am respected and esteemed by persons from the highest to the lowest quality. For the proof whereof, it being too tedious to insist upon each particular, I shall only mention such in general as are most worthy the remark, from which by analogy we may easily judge of the remainder. And indeed to what purpose would it be singly to recount the commonality and rabble of man- kind, who beyond all question are entirely on my side ? and for a token of their vassalage do wear my livery in so many older shapes, and more newly invented modes of Folly, that the lungs of a thousand Democrituses would never hold out to such a laughter as this subje<5l would excite ; and to these thousand must be super- added one more, to laugh at them as much as they do at the other. It is indeed almost incredible to relate what mirth, what sport, what diversion, the groveling inhabitants here on earth give to the above-seated gods in heaven : for these exalted deities spend their fasting sober hours in listening to those petitions that are offered up, and in succoring such as appeal to them for redress ; but when THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 185 they have imbibed a glass of nectar, they throw off all serious concerns, placing themselves on the ascent of some promontory in heaven, and from thence surveying the little mole-hill of earth. And trust me, there cannot be a more delightsome prospect, than to view such a theatre so stuffed and crammed with swarms of fools. One falls desperately in love, and the more he is slighted the more does his spaniel-like passion increase ; another is wedded to wealth rather than to a wife; a fourth is haunted with a jealousy of his visiting neigh- bors ; another sobs and roars, and plays the child, for the death of a friend or relative ; and lest his own tears should not rise high enough to express the torrent of his grief, he hires other mourners to accompany the corpse to the grave, and sing its requiem in sighs and lamenta- tions ; another hypocritically weeps at the funeral of one whose death at heart he rejoices for ; here a gluttonous cormorant, whatever he can scrape up, thrusts all down his throat to pacify the cryings of a hungry stomach ; there a lazy wretch sits yawning and stretching, and thinks nothing so desirable as sleep and idleness ; some are extremely industrious in other men's business, and sottishly neglectful of their own; some think themselves rich because their credit is good, though they can never pay, till they fail, and compound for their debts ; one is so covetous that he lives poor to die rich ; one for a little uncertain gain will venture to cross the roughest seas, and expose his life for the purchase of a livelihood ; an- other will depend on the plunders of war, rather than on the honest gains of peace ; some will close with and humor such warm old blades as have a good estate, and no 1 86 THB PRAISE OF FOLLY. children of their own to bestow it upon; others practice the same art of wheedling upon good old women, that have hoarded and coffered up more bags than they know how to dispose of ; both of these sly flatteries make fine sport for the gods, when they are beaten at their own weapons, and (as oft happens) are gulled by those very persons they intended to make a prey of. There is another sort of base scoundrels in gentility, such obsequious merchants, who, although they lie, swear, cheat, and practice all the intrigues of dishonesty, yet think themselves no way inferior to persons of the highest quality, only because they have raked together a plentiful estate ; and there are not wanting such insinu- ating hangers on, as shall caress and compliment them with the greatest respect, in hopes of going snacks in some of their dishonest gains. There are others so in- fected with the philosophical paradox of banishing prop- erty, and having all things in common, that they make no conscience of fastening on, and purloining whatever they can get, and converting it to their own use and possession ; there are some who are rich only in wishes, and yet while they barely dream of vast mountains of wealth, they are as happy as if their imaginary fancies were real truths ; some put on the best side outermost, and starve themselves at home to appear gay and splen- did abroad ; one with an open handed freedom spends all he lays his fingers on ; another with a logic-fisted gripingness catches at and grasps all he can come within the reach of; one apes it about the streets to court pop- ularity ; another consults his ease, and sticks to the con- finement of a chimney-corner ; many others are tugging The Pilgrim. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 189 hard at law for a trifle, and drive on an endless suit, only to enrich a deferring judge, or a knavish advocate ; one is for new-modeling a settled government ; another is for some notably heroic attempt ; and a third by all means must travel a pilgrim to Rome, Jerusalem, or some shrine of a saint elsewhere, though he have no other business than the paying of a formal obsequious visit, leaving his wife and children to fast, while he himself, forsooth, is gone to pray. In short, if (as Lucian fancies Menippus to have done heretofore,) any man could now again look down from the orb of the moon, he would see thick swarms as it were of flies and gnats, that were quarreling with each other, jostling, fighting, fluttering, skipping, playing, newly produced soon after decaying, and then immedi- ately vanishing, and it can scarce be imagined how many tumults and tragedies so inconsiderate a creature as man doth give occasion to, and that, in so short a space as the small span of human life, which is subject to so many casualties of sword, flame, famine, and pesti- lence, which often sweeps away thousands in the briefest periods of time. But hold ; I should but expose myself too far, and in- cur the guilt of being roundly laughed at, if I proceed to enumerate the several kinds of the folly of the vulgar. I shall confine my following discourse, therefore, to such only as challenge the repute of wisdom, and seemingly pass for men of the soundest intellects. And among these the Grammarians present themselves in the front, a sort of men who would be the most mis- erable, the most slavish, and the most hateful of all per- IQO THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. sons, if I did not in some way alleviate the cares and miseries of their profession by blessing them with a be- witching sort of madness : for they are not only liable to those five curses, which they so oft recite from the first five verses of Homer, but to five hundred more of a worse nature ; as being always damned to thirst and hun- ger, to be choked with dust in their unswept schools, (schools shall I term them, or rather laboratories, nay, bridewells, and houses of correction?) to wear them- selves out in fret and drudgery ; to be deafened with the noise of gaping boys ; and in short, to be stifled with heat and stench ; and yet they cheerfully endure all these inconveniences and, by the help of a fond conceit, they think themselves as happy as any men living : taking a great pride and delight in frowning and looking fierce upon the trembling urchins, in boxing the ears, slashing, striking with the ferula, and in the exercise of all their other methods of tyranny ; while thus lording it over a parcel of young, weak chits, they imitate the Cuman ass, and think themselves as stately as a lion, that domineers over all the inferior herd. Elevated with this conceit, they can hold filth and nastiness to be an ornament ; reconcile their nose to the most intolerable smells ; and finally think that their wretched surround- ings are the most pleasant and desirable that can be conceived, and which they would not consent to ex- change for the jurisdiction of the most sovereign poten- tate. And they are yet more happy by a strong per- suasion of their own parts and abilities ; for thus when their employment is only to rehearse silly stories, and poetical fictions, they will yet think themselves wiser The Professor. The Fabulous Story. The Rich Man. THE PRAISE OP FOLLY. 195 than the most experienced philosopher ; nay, they have an art of making ordinary people, (such as their school boys' fond parents,) think them as considerable as their own pride has made them. Add hereunto this other sort of ravishing pleasure. When any of them has found out who was the mother of Anchises, or has lighted upon some old unusual word, such as bubsequa ; bovinator ; manticulator ; or other like obsolete cramp terms ; or can, after a great deal of poring, spell out the inscription of some battered monu- ment ; Lord, what joy, what triumph, what congratula- tions of their success, as if they had conquered Africa, or taken Babylon the Great ! When they recite some of their frothy, bombastic verses, if any happen to admire them, they are presently flushed with the least hint of commendation, and devoutly thank Pythagoras for his grateful hypothesis, whereby they have now become actuated with a descent of Virgil's po- etic soul. Nor is any divertisement more pleasant, than when they meet to flatter and curry one another ; yet they are so critical, that if any one happen to be guilty of the least slip, or seeming blunder, another shall pres- ently correct him for it, and then to it they go in a tongue-combat, with all the fervor, spleen, and eagerness imaginable. May Priscian himself be my enemy, if what I am now going to say be not exactly true. I knew an old Sophister that was a Grecian, a latinist, a mathematician, a philosopher, a musician, and all to the utmost perfection ; who, after threescore years' ex- perience in the world, had spent the last twenty of them only in drudging to conquer the criticisms of grammar, 196 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. and made it the chief part of his prayers, that his life might be so long spared till he had learned how rightly to distinguish betwixt the eight parts of speech, which no grammarian, whether Greek or I., that in words of those initial letters Christ was the summus, or begin- ning, the mediuS) or middle, and the ultimus, 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 con- sisting of five letters : and this intermedial S being in the Hebrew alphabet called sin, which in the English 240 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. language signifies what the Latins term peccatum, was urged to imply that the holy Jesus should purify us from all sin and wickedness. Thus did the pulpiteer cant, while all the congregation, especially the brotherhood of divines, were so surprised at his odd way of preaching, that wonder served them, as grief did Niobe, and 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 endure, but let fly a report of the effect 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 in- elegant, and indeed, were such a long-fetched exordium any token of a good invention, shepherds and ploughmen might lay claim to the title of men of greatest parts, since upon any argument it is easiest for them to talk about 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 drive at, and many times mutters out the complaint of Virgil : " Whither doth all this jargon tend? " In the third place, when they come to the division of their text, they shall give only a very short interpretation of the words, when a fuller explication of their sense ought to have been their only province. THE PRAISE OF FOU.Y. 241 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 the scuffle. And here they shall cite their doctors invincible, subtle, seraphic, cherubic, holy, irrefragable, and such like great names to confirm their several assertions. Then out they bring their syl- logisms, their majors, their minors, conclusions, corolla- ries, suppositions, and distinctions, that will sooner terrify the congregation into an amazement, than per- suade 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 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, &c. 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 ; and then again, being told by rhetoricians that heights and falls, 242 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. and a different cadency in pronunciation, is a great ad- vantage 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 to finish in such a flat, faltering tone as if their spirits were spent, and they had run themselves out of breath. 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 affectedness. 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 flat- ter more than at such times as they pretend to speak with greatest freedom. Finally, all their actions are so buffoonish and inimical, that any would judge they 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 shopkeep- ers, and women, whose approbation and good opinion they only court ; because the first, if they are humored, give them some snacks out of unjust gain, and the last come and confess to them with great regularity, and receive in return advice, comfort and consolation. King David. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 245 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 tyrannize over the con- sciences 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 to kings, princes, and courtiers, who paying me a devout acknowledgment, 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 their most menial subjects. For certainly none can esteem perjury or parricide a cheap purchase for a crown, if he doth but seriously reflect upon that weight of cares a princely dia- dem is loaded with. He that sits at the helm of government acts in a pub- lic 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 not to be doubted but that they will carelessly discharge their respective duties. Hvery 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 be- 246 THE PRAISE OF POLLY. nign influence, if his behavior 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 wan- derings 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, apparent to all that are inferior to them. Kings are baited with so many temptations and op- portunities 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 the grave, yet after their reign here they must appear before a supremer judge, and there be called to an exact ac- count 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 many hardships of a royal life, they would be so perplexed in the result of their thoughts thereupon, as 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 attend- ance but those 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 The Sovereign. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 349 have sufficiently acquitted themselves in the duty of governing, if they do but ride constantly 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 invading of their people's property, and securing 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 submis- sive, flattering carriage, that they may so far insinuate into the affections of the vulgar, that they may not tumult nor rebel, but patiently crouch to burdens and exactions. L/et 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 enemy to liberty and truth, careless and unmindful of 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 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 commendable qual- ifications ; 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 250 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 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. Next to kings themselves may come their courtiers, who, though they are for the most part a base, servile, cringing, low-spirited sort of flatterers, yet they look big, swell great, and have high thoughts of their honor 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 goodness 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 familiarity of talking with him ; that they can volubly rehearse his several titles of august highness, supereminent excel- lence, 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 endow- ments, you shall find them mere sots and dolts. They will sleep generally till noon, and then their mercenary chaplains 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 Searching the Scriptures. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 253 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 marshaled, the glasses ranked, and round go the healths and bumpers till they are car- ried to bed. And this is the constant method of passing away their hours, days, months, years, and ages. I have many times taken great satisfaction, standing in the court, and seeing how the tawdry butterflies vie one with another. The ladies shall measure the height of their humors 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 size, as require no less strength to carry than they do wealth to purchase. And now for some reflections upon popes, cardinals, and bishops, who in pomp and splendor have almost equaled if not outdone secular princes. Now, if any one considers that their upper crochet of white linen is to signify their unspotted purity and in- nocence ; that their forked mitres, with both divisions tied together by the same knot, are to denote the joint knowledge of the Old and New Testament ; that their always wearing gloves, represents their keeping their hands clean and undefiled from lucre and covetousness ; that the pastoral staff implies the care of a flock com- mitted to their charge ; that the cross carried before them expresses their victory over all carnal affec- tions ; he (I say) that considers this, and much more of the like nature, must needs conclude that they are en- trusted with a very weighty and difficult office. But, 254 THE PRAISE OF FOI^Y. alas, they think it sufficient if they can but feed them- selves; and as to their flock, either commend them to the care of Christ himself, or commit them to the guidance of some inferior vicars and curates ; not so much as remembering what their name of bishop imports, to wit, xabor, pains, and diligence, but by base simoniacal con- tracts, they are in a profane sense, Episcopi, i.e., over- seers of their own gain and income. So cardinals, in like manner, if they did but consider that the church supposes them to succeed in the room of the apostles ; that therefore they must behave themselves as their predecessors, and so not be lords, but dispensers of spiritual gifts, of the disposal whereof they must one day render a strict account. Or if they would but reflect a little on their habit, and thus reason with themselves, What means this white upper garment but only an unspotted innocence ? What signifies my inner purple but only an ardent love and zeal to God ? What imports my outermost pall, so wide and long that it covers the whole mule when I ride, nay, should be big enough to cover a camel, but only a diffusive charity, that should spread itself for a succor and protection to all, by teach- ing, exhorting, comforting, reproving, admonishing, composing of differences, courageously withstanding wicked princes, and sacrificing for the safety of our flock our life and blood, as well as our wealth and riches ; though indeed riches ought not to be at all possessed by such as boast themselves successors to the apostles, who were poor, needy, and destitute. I say, if they did but lay these considerations to heart they would never be so ambitious of being promoted to this honor, they would ^~v? The Bishop. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 257 willingly resign it when conferred upon them, or at least would be as industrious, watchful and laborious as the primitive apostles were. Now as to the popes of Rome, who pretend themselves Christ's vicars, if they would but imitate his exemplary life, in the being employed in an unintermitted course of preaching ; in the being attended with poverty, naked- ness, hunger, and a contempt of this world ; if they did but consider the import of the word Pope, which signifies a father ; or if they did but practice their surname of most holy, what order or degrees of men would be in a worse condition ? There would be then no such vigorous making of par- ties and buying of votes in the Conclave, upon a vacancy of that See : and those who by bribery, or other indirect courses, should get themselves elected, would never se- cure their sitting firm in the chair by pistol, poison, force, and violence. How much of their pleasure would be abated if they were but endowed with one dram of wisdom ? Wisdom, did I say ? Nay, with one grain of that salt which our Savior bade them not to lose the savor of. All their riches, all their honors, their jurisdictions, their Peter's patrimony, their offices, their dispensations, their licenses, their indulgences, their long train of attendants (see in how short a compass I have abbrevia- ted all their marketing of religion); in a word, all their perquisites would be forfeited and lost ; and in their room would succeed watchings, fastings, tears, prayers, sermons, hard studies, repenting sighs, and a thousand such like severe penalties : nay, what's yet more deplor- 258 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. able, it would then follow, that all their clerks, amanu- enses, notaries, advocates, proctors, secretaries, the offices of grooms, ostlers, serving-men, pimps, (and somewhat else, which for modesty's sake I shall not mention) ; in short, all these troops of attendants, which depend on his holiness, would all lose their several employments. This indeed would be hard, but what yet remains would be more dreadful : the very Head of the Church, the spiritual prince, would then be brought from all his splendor to the poor equipage of a scrip and staff. But all this is upon the supposition only that they understood the circumstances they are placed in ; whereas now, by a wholesome neglect of thinking, they live as well as heart can wish. Whatever of toil and drudgery belongs to their office, that they assign over to St. Peter or St. Paul, who have time enough to mind it ; but if there be any thing of pleasure and grandeur, that they assume to themselves, as being u hereunto called : " so that by my influence no sort of people live more to their own ease and content. They think to satisfy that Master they pretend to serve, our L/ord and Savior, with their great state and mag- nificence, with the ceremonies of installments, with the titles of reverence and holiness, and with exercising their episcopal function only in blessing and cursing. The working of miracles is old and out-dated ; to teach the people is too laborious ; to interpret scripture is to invade the prerogative of the schoolmen ; to pray is too idle ; to shed tears is cowardly and unmanly ; to fast is too mean and sordid ; to be easy and familiar is beneath the grandeur of him, who, without being sued to and TTie Cardinal. Fingering Money through a Thick Pair of Gloves. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 263 intreated, will scarce give princes the honor of kissing his toe ; finally, to die for religion is too self-denying; and to be crucified as their Lord of Life, is base and ignominious. Their only weapons ought to be those of the Spirit ; and of these indeed they are mighty liberal, as of their interdicts, their suspensions, their denunciations, their aggravations, their greater and lesser excommunications, and their roaring bulls, that fright whomsoever they are thundered against ; and these most holy fathers never issue them out more frequently than against those, who, at the instigation of the devil, and not having the fear of God before their eyes, do feloniously and maliciously attempt to lessen and impair St. Peter's patrimony : and though that apostle tells our Savior in the gospel, in the name of all the other disciples, we have left all and fol- lowed you, yet they challenge as his inheritance, fields, towns, treasures, and large dominions ; for the defending whereof, inflamed with a holy zeal, they fight with fire and sword, to the great loss and effusion of Christian blood, thinking they are apostolical maintainers of Christ's spouse, the church, when they have murdered all such as they call her enemies ; though indeed the church has no enemies more bloody and tyrannical than such impious popes, who give dispensations for the not preaching of Christ ; evacuate the main effect and design of our redemption by their pecuniary bribes and sales ; adulterate the gospel by their forced interpretations, and undermining traditions ; and lastly, by their lusts and wickedness grieve the Holy Spirit, and make their Savior's wounds to bleed anew. 264 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. Farther, when the Christian church has been all along first planted, then confirmed, and since established by the blood of her martyrs, as if Christ, her head, would be wanting in the same methods still of protecting her, they invert the order, and propagate their religion now by arms and violence, which was wont formerly to be done only with patience and suffering. And though war be so brutish, as that it becomes beasts rather than men ; so extravagant, that the poets feigned it an effect of the furies ; so licentious, that it stops the course of all justice and honesty, so desperate, that it is best waged by ruffians and banditti, and so unchristian, that it is contrary to the express commands of the gospel ; yet magure all this, peace is too quiet, too inactive, and they must be engaged in the boister- ousness of war. Among which latter undertaking you shall have some popes so old that they can scarce creep, and yet they will put on a young, brisk resolution, will resolve to stick at no pains, to spare no cost, nor to waive any inconven- ience, so they may involve laws, religion, peace, and all other concerns, whether sacred or civil, in unappeasable tumults and distractions. And yet some of their learned fawning courtiers will interpret this notorious madness for zeal, and piety, and fortitude, having found out the way how a man may draw his sword, and sheathe it in his brother's bowels, and yet not offend against the commandment whereby we are taught to love our neighbors as ourselves. It is yet uncertain whether these Romish fathers have taken example from, or given precedent to, such other The Threatening* of the Church. Religion turned over to the Care of the Laity. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 369 German bishops who, omitting their ecclesiastical habit, and other ceremonies, appear openly armed cap-a-pie, like so many champions and warriors, thinking no doubt that they come short of the duty of their function, if they die in any other place than the open field, fighting the battles of the L,ord. The inferior clergy, deeming it unmannerly not to conform to their patrons and diocesans, devoutly tug and fight for their tithes with syllogisms, and arguments, as fiercely as with swords, sticks, stones, or anything that came next to hand. When they read the rabbies, fa- thers, or other ancient writings, how quick-sighted are they in spying out any sentences that they may frighten the people with, and make them believe that more than the tenth is due, passing by whatever they meet with in the same authors that reminds them of the duty and difficulty of their own office. They never consider that their shaven crown is a token that they should pare off and cut away all the superfluous lusts of this world, and give themselves wholly to divine meditation; but instead of this, our bald-pated priests think they have done enough, if they do but mumble over such a fardel of prayers ; which it is a wonder if God should hear or understand, when they whisper them so softly, and in so unknown a language, which they can scarce hear or understand themselves. This they have in common with other mechanics, that they are most subtle in the craft of getting money, and wonderfully skilled in their respec- tive dues of tithes, offerings, perquisites, &c. Thus they are all content to reap the profit, but as to 270 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. the burden, that they toss as a ball from one hand to another, and assign it over to any they can get or hire. For as secular princes have their judges and subordinate ministers to act in their name, and supply their stead ; so ecclesiastical governors have their deputies, vicars, and curates, nay, many times turn over the whole care of religion to the laity. The laity, supposing they have nothing to do with the church (as if their baptismal vow did not initiate them members of it), make it over to the priests ; of the priests again, those that are secular, thinking their title implies them to be a little too pro- fane, assign this task over to the regulars, the regulars to the monks, the monks bandy it from one order to another, till it light upon the mendicants ; they lay it upon the carthusians, which order alone keeps honesty and piety among them, but really keep them so close that nobody could ever yet see them. Thus the Popes, thrusting out their sickle into the harvest of profit, leave all the other toil of spiritual hus- bandry to the bishops, the bishops bestow it upon the pastors, the pastors on their curates, and the curates commit it to the mendicants, who return it again to such as well know how to make good advantage of the flock, by securing the benefit of their fleece. But I would not be thought purposely to expose the weaknesses of popes and priests, lest I should seem to recede from my title, and make a satire instead of a pan- egyric. Nor let any one imagine that I reflect on good princes, by commending of bad ones. I did this only in brief, to show that there is no one particular person can lead a comfortable life, except he be entered of my All Concerns Arranged with Money. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 273 society, and retain me for his friend. Nor indeed can it be otherwise, since fortune, that empress of the world, is so much in league and amity with me, that to wise men, she is always stingy, and sparing of her gifts, but is profusely liberal and lavish to fools. Thus Timotheus, the Athenian commander, in all his expeditions, was a mirror of good luck, because he was a little underwitted ; from him was occasioned the Grecian proverb, 'H evdovros nvpros fapei, The net fills, though the fisherman sleeps ; there is still another favor- able proverb yhabz inrarai, The owl flies, an omen of success. But against wise men are pointed these ill- aboding proverbs, 'Ev rerpaSt yevvrjQevTas, Born under a bad planet; equum habet seianum, He cannot ride the fore-horse: aurum tholosanum, Ill-gotten goods will never prosper : and more to the same purpose. But I forbear from any farther proverbializing, lest I should be thought to have rifled my Erasmus's adages. To return, therefore, fortune we find still favoring the blunt, and flushing the forward ; strokes and smoothes up fools, crowning all their undertakings with success ; but wisdom makes her followers bashful, sneaking, and timorous, and therefore you see that they are commonly reduced to hard shifts, must grapple with poverty, cold and hunger, must lie recluse, despised, and unregarded, while fools roll in money, are advanced to dignities and offices, and in a word have the whole world at com- mand. If any one think it happy to be a favorite at court, and to manage the disposal of places and preferments, alas, this happiness is so far from being attainable by 274 T H E PRAISE OF FOLLY. wisdom, that the very suspicion of it would put a stop to all advancement. Has any man a mind to raise himself a good estate ? Alas, what dealer in the world would ever get a farthing if he be so wise as to scruple at perjury, blush at a lie, or stick at any fraud and over-reaching. Farther, does any one appear a candidate for any ec- clesiastical dignity ? Why, an ass, or a plough-jobber, shall sooner gain it than a wise man. Again, are you in love with any handsome lady? Alas, woman-kind are so addicted to folly, that they will not at all listen to the courtship of a wise suitor. Finally, wherever there is any preparation made for mirth and jollity, all wise men are sure to be excluded from the company, lest they should stint the joy, and damp the frolic. In a word, to what side soever we turn ourselves, to popes, princes, judges, magistrates, friends, enemies, rich or poor, all their concerns are managed by money, which because it is undervalued by wise men, therefore, in revenge to be sure, it never comes to them. But now, though my praise and commendation might well be endless, yet it is requisite I should put some pe- riod to my speech. I'll therefore draw toward an end, when I have first confirmed what I have said by the authority of several authors. Which by way of farther proof I shall insist upon, partly, that I may not be thought to have said more in my own behalf than what will be justified by others ; and partly, that the lawyers may not check me for citing no precedents nor allega- tions. To imitate them therefore I will produce some re- The Courtier. The Brutish Man. THE PRAISE OF POLLY. 279 ports and authorities, though perhaps like theirs too, they are nothing to the purpose. First, then, it is confessed almost to a proverb, that the art of dissembling is a very necessary accomplish- ment ; and therefore it is a common verse among school-boys : To feign the fool when fit occasions rise, Argues the being more completely wise. It is easy therefore to realize how great a value ought to be put upon real folly, when the very shadow, and bare imitation of it, is so much esteemed. Horace, who in his epistles thus styles himself : My sleek- skinn 'd corpse as smooth as if I lie 'Mong ttt fatted swine of Epicurus 's sty. This poet (I say) gives this advice in one of his odes : Short Folly with your counsels mix. The epithet of short, it is true, is a little improper. The same poet again has this passage elsewhere : Well-timed Folly has a sweet relish. And in another place : I'd rather much be censured for a fool, Than feel the lash and smart of wisdom's school. Homer praises Telemachus as much as any one of his heroes, and yet he gives him the epithet of N^tos, Silly: and the Grecians generally use the same word to express children, as a token of their innocence. And what is the argument of all Homer's Iliads, but only as Horace observes : They kings and subjects dotages contain ? 280 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. How positive also is Tully's commendation that all places are filled with fools? Now every excellence being measured by its extent, the goodness of folly must be of as large compass as those universal places she reaches to. But perhaps Christians may slight the au- thority of a heathen. I could therefore, if I pleased, back and confirm the truth hereof by the citations of several texts of scripture ; though herein it were perhaps my duty to beg leave of the divines, that I might so far in- trench upon their prerogative. Supposing a grant, the task being so difficult as to require the invocation of some aid and assistance ; yet because it is unreasonable to put the muses to the ex- pense and trouble of so tedious a journey, especially since the business is out of their sphere, I shall choose rather (while I am acting the divine, and venturing in their polemic difficulties), to wish myself for such time animated with Scotus, his bristling and prickly soul, which I would not care how afterwards it returned to his body, though for refinement it were stopped at a purga- tory by the way. I cannot but wish that I might wholly change my character, or at least that some grave divine, in my stead, might rehearse this part of the subject for me ; for truly I suspect that somebody will accuse me of plundering the closets of those reverend men, while I pretend to so much divinity as must appear in my following discourse. Yet, however, it may not seem strange, that after so long and frequent a converse, I have gleaned some scraps from the divines ; since Horace's wooden god by hearing his master read Homer, learned some words THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 28l of Greek ; and Lucian's cock, by long attention, could readily understand what any man spoke. But now to the purpose, wishing myself success. Ecclesiastes doth somewhere confess that there are an infinite number of fools. Now when he speaks of an infinite number, what does he else but imply that herein is included the whole race of mankind, except some very few, which I know not whether any one ever yet had the happiness to see ? The prophet Jeremiah speaks yet more plainly in his tenth chapter, where he saith, that Every man is brutish in his knowledge. He just before attributes wisdom to God alone, saying, that the Wise men of the nations are altogether brutish and foolish. And in the preceding chapter he gives this seasonable caution, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom : the reason is obvious, because no man hath truly any whereof to glory. But to return to Ecclesiastes, when he saith, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, what else can we imagine his meaning to be, than that our whole life is nothing but one continued interlude of Folly ? This confirms that assertion of Tully, which is deliv- ered in that noted passage we but just now mentioned, namely, that All places swarm with fools. Farther, what does the son of Sirach mean when he saith in Ecclesiasticus, that the Fool is changed as the moon, while the Wise man is fixed as the sun, than only to hint out the folly of all mankind ; and that the name of wise is due to no other but the all-wise God ? for all interpreters by Moon understand mankind, and by Sun that fountain of all light, the Almighty. The same 282 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. sense is implied in that saying of our Savior in the gos- pel, There is none good but one, that is God: for if whoever is not wise must be consequently a fool, and if, according to the Stoics, every man be wise so far only as he is good, the meaning of the text must be, all mor- tals are unavoidably fools ; and there is none wise but one, that is God. Solomon also in the fifteenth chapter of his proverbs hath this expression, Folly is joy to him that is destitute of wisdom ; plainly intimating, that the wise man is attended with grief and vexation, while the foolish only roll in delight and pleasure. To the same purpose is that saying of his in the first chapter of Ecclesiastes, In much wisdom is much grief ; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Again, it is confessed by the same preacher in the seventh chapter of the same book, That the heart of the wise is in the house of mourn- ing, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. This author himself had never attained to such a portion of wisdom, it he had not applied himself to a searching out the frailties and infirmities of human nature ; as, if you believe not me, may appear from his own words in his first chapter, I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly ; where it is worthy to be ob- served that as to the order of words, Folly, for its advan- tage is put in the last place. Thus Ecclesiastes wrote, and thus indeed did an ecclesiastical method require ; namely, that what has the precedence in dignity should come hindmost in rank and order, according to the tenor of that evangelical precept, The last shall be first and the first shall be last. All is Vanity. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 285 And in Ecclesiasticus likewise (whoever was the au- thor of the holy book which bears that name) in the forty-fourth chapter, the excellency of folly above wis- dom is positively acknowledged ; the very words I shall not cite, till I have the advantage of an answer to a question I am proposing, this way of interrogating being frequently made use of by Plato in his dialogues between Socrates and other disputants. I ask you then, what is it we usually hoard and lock up, things of greater esteem and value, or those which are more common, trite, and despicable ? Why are you so backward in making an answer ? Since you are so shy and reserved, I'll take the Greek proverb for a coherent reply; namely, r?/r tni QvpoaSvSpiav, Foul water is thrown down the sink : which saying, that no person may slight it, may be convenient to advertise that it comes from no meaner an author than that oracle of truth, Aristotle himself. And indeed there is no one on this side Bedlam so mad as to throw out upon the dunghill his gold and jewels, but rather all persons have a close repository to preserve them in, and secure them under all the locks, bolts, and bars, that either art can contrive, or fears suggest ; whereas the dirt, pebbles, and oyster-shells, that lie scattered in the streets, ye trample upon, pass by, and take no notice of. If then what is more valuable be coffered up, and what less so lies unregarded, it follows, that accordingly Folly should meet with a greater esteem than wisdom, because that wise author advises us to the keeping close and concealing the first, and exposing or laying open the 286 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. other : as take him now in his own words, Better is he that hideth his folly than him that hidelh his wisdom. Beside, the sacred text doth oft ascribe innocence and sincerity to fools, while the wise man is apt to be a haughty scorner of all such as he thinks or believes to have less wit than himself: for so I understand that passage in the tenth chapter of Ecclesiastes, When he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool. Now what greater argument of candor or ingenuity can there be, than to demean himself equal with all others, and not think their deserts any way inferior to his own ? Folly is no such scandalous attribute, but that the wise Agur was not ashamed to confess it, in the thirtieth chapter of Proverbs : Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man. Nay, St. Paul himself, that great doctor of the Gen- tiles, writing to his Corinthians, readily owns the name, saying, If any man speak as a fool, I am more ; as if to have been less so had been a reproach and disgrace. But perhaps I may be censured for misinterpreting this text by some modern annotators, who like crows pecking at one another's eyes, find fault, and correct all that went before them, each pretending that their own glosses contain the only true and genuine explication : among whom my Erasmus (whom I cannot but mention with respect) may challenge the second place, if not the precedency. This citation (say they) is purely imperti- nent ; the meaning of the apostle is far different from what you dream of. He would not have these words so understood, as if he desired to be thought a greater fool The Devotion to Folly. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 291 than the rest, but only when he had before said, Are they ministers of Christ? so am I : as if the comparing himself herein to others had been too little, he adds, / am more, thinking a bare equality not enough, unless he were even superior to those he compares himself with. This he would have to be believed as true ; yet lest it might be thought offensive, as bordering too much on arrogance and conceit, he tempers and alleviates it by the covert of Folly. I speak (says he) as a fool, knowing it to be the peculiar privilege of fools to speak the truth, without giving offence. But what St. Paul's thoughts were when he wrote this, I leave for them to determine. In my own judgment at least I prefer the opinion of the good old tun-bellied divines, with whom it's safer and more creditable to err, than to be in the right with smattering, raw, novices. Nor indeed should any one mina the late critics any more than the senseless chattering of a daw : especially since one of the most eminent of them (whose name I advisedly conceal, lest some of our wits should be taunt- ing him with the Greek proverb, *Oo? npte Mpav, ad lyram asinus) magisterially and dogmatically descanting upon his text [are they the ministers of Christ? (I speak as a foot) I am more} makes a distinct chapter, and (which without good store of logic he could never have done) adds a new section, and then gives this paraphrase, which I shall verbatim recite, that you may have his words materially, as well as formerly his sense (for that's one of their babbling distinctions). [/ speak as a fool} that is, if the equaling myself to those false apostles would have been construed as the vaunt of a fool, I will 2Q2 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. willingly be accounted a greater fool, by taking the place of them, and openly pleading, that as to their ministry, I not only come up even with them, but out- strip and go beyond them : though this same commenta- tor a little after, as it were forgetting what he had just before delivered, tacks about and shifts to another in- terpretation. But why do I insist upon any one particular example, when in general it is the public charter of all divines, to mould and bend the sacred oracles till they comply with their own fancy, spreading them (as Heaven by its Cre- ator) like a curtain, closing together, or drawing them back as they please ? Thus indeed St. Paul himself minces and mangles some citations he makes use of, and seems to wrest them to a different sense from that for which they were first intended, as is confessed by the great linguist, St. Hierom. Thus, when that apostle saw at Athens the inscription of an altar, he draws from it an argument for the proof of the Christian religion ; but leaving out a great part of the sentence, which perhaps if fully recited might have prejudiced his cause, he mentions only the two last words, viz., To the unknown God ; and this too not without alteration, for the whole inscription runs thus : To the Gods 0/"Asia, Europe, and Africa, to all foreign and unknown Gods. 'Tis an imitation of the same pattern, I will warrant you, that our young divines, by leaving out four or five words in a place, and putting a false construction on the rest, can make any passage serviceable to their own pur- The Pope. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 295 pose ; though from the coherence of what went before, or follows after, the genuine meaning appears to be either [wide enough, or perhaps quite contradictory to what they would thrust and impose upon .it. In which knack the divines have grown now so expert, that the lawyers themselves begin to be jealous of an encroach- ment upon what was formerly their sole privilege and practice. And indeed what can they despair of proving, since the fore-mentioned commentator, (I had almost blundered out his name, but that I am restrained by fear of the same Greek proverbial sarcasm), did upon a text of St. lyuke put an interpretation no more agreea- ble to the meaning of the piece than one contrary quality is to another. The passage is this : when Judas' s treachery was pre- paring to be executed, and accordingly it seemed requi- site that all the disciples should be provided to guard and secure their assaulted master, our Savior, that he might piously caution them against reliance for his de- livery on any worldly strength, asks them, whether in all their embassy they lacked anything, when he had sent them out so unfurnished for the performance of a long journey, that they had not so much as shoes to de- fend their feet from the injuries of flints and thorns, or a scrip to carry a meal's meat in ; and when they had answered that they lacked nothing, he adds, But now he that hath a purse let him take it, and likewise a scrip : and he that hath no sword let him sell his garment, and buy one. Now when the whole doctrine of our Savior inculcates nothing more frequently than meekness, patience, and a 296 THE PRAISE OP FOLLY. contempt of this world, is it not plain what the meaning of the advice is ? Namely, that he might now dismiss his ambassadors in a more naked, defenceless condition. He does not only advise them to take no thought for shoes or scrip, but even commands them to part with the very clothes from their back, that so they might have the less incumbrance and entanglement in the going through their office and function. He cautions them, it is true, to be furnished with a sword, yet not such a carnal one as rogues and highway- men make use of for murder and bloodshed, but with the sword of the Spirit, which pierces through the heart, and searches out the innermost retirements of the soul, lopping off all our lust, and corrupt affections, and leaving nothing in possession of our breast but piety, zeal, and devotion. This, I say, in my opinion is the most natural inter- pretation. But see how that divine misunderstands the subject. By sword, says he, is meant defence against persecu- tion ; by scrip or purse, a sufficient quantity of provision ; as if Christ had, by considering better of it, changed his mind in reference to that mean equipage, which he had before sent his disciples in, and therefore came now to a recantation of what he had formerly instituted : or as if he had forgotten what in time past he had told them, Blessed are you when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you for my sake. Render not evil for evil, for blessed are the meek, not the cruel : as if he had forgotten that he encouraged them by the examples of sparrows and lilies to take no Self Admiration. The Provident Preacher. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 301 thought for the morrow; he gives them now another lesson, and charges them, rather than go without a sword, to sell their garment, and buy one ; as if the going cold and naked were more excusable than the marching un- armed. And, as this author thinks all means which are requisite for the prevention or retaliation of injuries to be implied under the name of sword, so under that of scrip, he would have everything to be comprehended, which either the necessity or conveniency of life re- quires. Thus does this provident commentator furnish out the disciples with halberts, spears, and guns, for the enter- prise of preaching Christ crucified ; he supplies them at the same time with pockets, bags, and portmanteaus, that they might carry their cupboards as well as their bellies always about them : he takes no notice how our Savior afterwards rebukes Peter for drawing that sword which he had just before so strictly charged him to buy; nor that it is ever recorded that the primitive Christians did by no ways withstand their heathen persecutors otherwise than with tears and prayers, which they would have exchanged more effectually for swords and bucklers, if they had thought this text would have borne them out. There is another, and he of no mean credit, whom for respect to his person I shall forbear to name, who com- menting upon that verse in the prophet Habakkuk (/ saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains of the landofMidian did tremble), because tents were some- times made of skins, he pretended that the word tents did here signify the skin of St. Bartholomew, who was flayed for a martyr. 302 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. I myself was lately at a divinity disputation (where I very often pay my attendance), where one of the oppo- nents demanded a reason why it should be thought more proper to silence all heretics by sword and fagot, rather than convert them by moderate and sober arguments. A certain cynical old blade, who bore the character ol a divine, legible in the frowns and wrinkles of his face, not without a great deal of disdain answered, that it was the express injunction of St. Paul himself, in those di- rections to Titus (A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject\ quoting it in Latin, where the word reject is devita, while all the auditory wondered at this citation, and deemed it no way appli- cable to his purpose ; he at last explained himself, saying, that devita signified de vita tollendum hereticum, a he- retic must be slain. Some smiled at his ignorance, but others approved of it as an orthodox comment. And however some disliked that such violence should be done to so easy a text, our hair-splitting and irrefragable doc- tor went on in triumph. To prove it yet (says he) more undeniably, it is com- manded in the old law [ Thou shall not suffer a witch to live .] now, then, every Maleficus, or witch, is to be killed, but an heretic is Maleficus, which in the Latin translation is put for a witch, ergo, &c. All that were present wondered at the ingenuity of the person, and very devoutly embraced his opinion, never dreaming that the law was restrained only to magicians, sorcerers, and enchanters : for otherwise, if the word Maleficus signified what it most naturally implies, every Slow of Heart. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 305 evil-doer, then drunkenness and whoredom were to meet with the same capital punishment as witchcraft, magic, and sorcery. But why should I squander away my time in a too tedious prosecution of this topic, which if drove on to the utmost would afford talk to eternity ? I aim herein at no more than this, namely, that since those grave doctors take such a swinging range and latitude, I, who am but a smattering novice in divinity, may have the larger allowance for any slips or mistakes. Now, therefore, I return to St. Paul, who uses these expressions [Ye suffer fools gladly], applying it to him- self; and again \_As a fool receive me], and \That which I speak, I speak not after the Lord, but as it were fool- ishly}; and in another place \We are fools for Chris fs sake]. See how these commendations of Folly are equal to the author of them, both great and sacred. The same holy person does yet enjoin and command the being a fool, as a virtue of all others most requisite and necessary : for, says he, \Jf any man seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise]. Thus St. L/uke records, how our Savior, after his resurrection, joining himself with two of his disciples traveling to Emmaus, at his first salutation he calls them fools, say- ing \_Ofools and slow of heart to believe"]. Nor may this seem strange in comparison to what is yet farther deliv- ered by St. Paul, who adventures to attribute something of Folly even to the all- wise God himself {The foolish- ness of God (says he) is wiser than men] ; in which text St. Origen would not have the word foolishness any way 306 THE PRAISE OF referred to men, or applicable to the same sense, wherein is to be understood that other passage of St. Paul \The preaching of the cross to them that perish, foolishness']. But why do I put myself to the trouble of citing so many proofs, since this one may suffice for all, namely, that in those mystical psalms, wherein David represents the type of Christ, it is there acknowledged by our Sav- ior, in way of confession, that even he himself was guilty of Folly; Thou (says he) O God knowest my foolishness f Nor is it without some reason that fools for their plainness and sincerity of heart have always been most acceptable to God Almighty. For as the princes of this world have shrewdly suspected, and carried ajealous eye over such of their subjects as were the most observant and deepest politicians (for thus Caesar was afraid of the plodding Cassius, and Brutus thought himself secure enough from the careless drinking Anthony ; Nero like- wise mistrusted Seneca, and Dionysius would have been willingly rid of Plato), whereas they can all put greater confidence in such as are of less subtlety and contrivance. So our Savior in like manner dislikes and condemns the wise and crafty, as St. Paul expressly declared in these words, God hath chosen the foolish things of the world ; and again, it pleased God by foolishness to save the world; implying that by wisdom it could never have been saved. Nay, God himself testifies as much when he speaks by the mouth of his prophet, / will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to naught the understanding of the learned. Again, our Savior does solemnly return his Father THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 307 thanks for that he had hidden the mysteries of salvation from the wise, and revealed them unto babes, i. e., to fools ; for the original word vrjitiois, being opposed to dofox, if one signify wise, the other must foolish. To the same purpose did our blessed Lord frequently condemn and upbraid the scribes, pharisees, and lawyers, while he carries himself kind and obliging to the un- learned multitude : for what otherwise can be the mean- ing of that tart denunciation, Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, than woe unto you wise men, whereas he seems chiefly delighted with children, women, and illit- erate fishermen. We may farther take notice, that among all the sev- eral kinds of brute creatures he shows greatest liking to such as are farthest distant from the subtlety of the fox. Thus in his progress to Jerusalem he chose to ride sitting upon an ass, though, if he pleased, he might have mounted the back of a lion with more of state, and as little of danger. The Holy Spirit chose rather likewise to descend from heaven in the shape of a simple guile- less dove, than that of an eagle, kite, or other more lofty fowl. Thus all along in the holy scriptures there are frequent metaphors and similitudes of the most inoffensive creat- ures, such as stags, hinds, lambs, and the like. Nay, those blessed souls that in the day of judgment are to be placed at our Savior's right hand are called sheep, which are the most senseless and stupid of all cattle, as is evi- denced by Aristotle's Greek proverb, Ttpo/Sdroov r$o$, a sheepishness of temper, i. e., a dull, blockish, sleepy, un- manly humor. Yet of such a flock Christ is not ashamed 308 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. to profess himself the shepherd. Nay, he would not only have all his proselytes termed sheep, but even he himself would be called a lamb ; as when John the Bap- tist seeth Jesus coming unto him, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God ; which same title is very often given to our Savior in the apocalypse. All this amounts to no less than that all mortal men are fools, even the righteous and godly as well as sin- ners; nay, in some sense our blessed Lord himself, who, although he was the wisdom of the Father, yet to repair the infirmities of fallen man, he became in some measure a partaker of human Folly, when he took our nature upon him, and was formed in fashion as a man ; or when God made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Nor would he heal those breaches our sins had made by any other method than by the foolishness of 'the cross, published by the ignorant and unlearned apostles, to whom he frequently recommends the excellence of Folly, cautioning them against the infectionness of wisdom, by the several examples he proposes them to imitate, such as children, lilies, sparrows, mustard, and such like beings, which are either wholly inanimate, or at least devoid of reason and ingenuity, guided by no other con- duct than that of instinct, without care, trouble or con- trivance. To the same intent the disciples were warned by their lord and master, that when they should be brought unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates and powers, they shall take no thought how, or what thing they should an- swer, nor what they should say : they were again strictly THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 309 forbid to enquire into the times and seasons, or to place any confidence in their own abilities, but to depend wholly upon divine assistance. At the first peopling of paradise the Almighty had never laid so strict a charge on our father Adam to re- frain from eating of the tree of knowledge except he had thereby forewarned him that the taste of knowledge would be the bane of all happiness. St. Paul says expressly, that knowledge puffeth up, i.e., it is fatal and poisonous. In pursuance whereunto St. Bernard interprets that the exceeding high mountain, whereon the devil had erected his seat, must have been the mountain of knowledge. And perhaps this may be another argument which ought not to be omitted, namely, that Folly is accepta- ble, or at least excusable, with the gods, inasmuch, as they easily pass by the heedless failures of fools, while the miscarriages of such as are known to have more wit shall very hardly obtain a pardon ; nay, when a wise man comes to sue for an acquitment from any guilt, he must shroud himself under the patronage and pretext of Folly. For thus in the twelfth of Numbers, Aaron entreats Moses to stay the leprosy of his sister Miriam, saying, alas, my Lord, I beseech thee lay not the sin upon us, wherein we have done foolishly. Thus, when David spared Saul's life, when he found him sleeping in a tent of Hachilah, not willing to stretch forth his hand against the Lord's anointed, Saul excuses his former severity by confessing, Behold, I have played the fool and have erred exceedingly. 310 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. David also, in much the same form, begs the remission of his sin from God Almighty with this prayer, Lord, I pray thee take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done very foolishly ; as if he could not have hoped otherwise to have his pardon granted except he petitioned for it under the covert and mitigation of Folly. The agreeable practice of our Savior is yet more con- vincing, who, when he hung upon the cross, prayed for his enemies, saying, Father, forgive them, urging no other plea in their behalf than that of their ignorance, for they know not what they do. To the same effect St. Paul in his first epistle to Timothy acknowledges he had been a blasphemer and a persecutor, But (saith he) / obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. Now what is the meaning of the phrase [/ did it igno- rantly^ but only this ? My fault was occasioned from a misinformed Folly, not from a deliberate malice. What signifies [ / obtained mercy} but only that I should not otherwise have obtained it had not folly and ignorance been my vindication ? To the same purpose is that other passage in the mys- terious Psalmist, which I forgot to mention in its proper place, namely, Oh, remember not the sins and offences of my youth ! the word which we render offences, is in Latin ignorantias, ignorances. Observe, the two things he alleges in his excuse are, first, his rawness of age, to which Folly and want of experience are constant attend- ants : and secondly, his ignorances, expressed in the plural number for an enhancement and aggravation of his foolishness. But that I may .not wear out this subject too far, to Wise in the Distribution of Charity. THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. 313 draw now towards a conclusion, it is observable that the Christian religion seems to have some relation to Folly, and no alliance at all with wisdom. Of the truth whereof, if you desire farther proof than my bare word, you may please, first, to consider, that children, women, old men, and fools, led as it were by a secret impulse o. nature, are always most constant in repairing to church, and most zealous, devout and attentive in the perform- ance of the several parts of divine service ; nay, the first promulgators of the gospel, and the first converts to Christianity, were men of plainness and simplicity, wholly unacquainted with secular policy or learning. Farther, there are none more silly, or nearer their wits' end, than those who are too superstitiously relig- ious. They are profusely lavish in their charity; they invite fresh affronts by an easy forgiveness of past in- juries ; they suffer themselves to be cheated and imposed upon by laying claim to the innocence of the dove ; they make it the interest of no person to oblige them, because they will love, and do good to their enemies, as much as to the most endearing friends ; they banish all pleasure, feeding upon the penance of watching, weeping, fasting, sorrow and reproach ; they value not their lives, but with St. Paul, wish to be dissolved, and covet the fiery trial of martyrdom : in a word, they seem altogether so destitute of common sense, that their soul seems already separated from the dead and inactive body. And what else can we imagine all this to be than downright madness ? Is it the less strange therefore that at the feast of Pentecost the apostles should be thought drunk with 314 THE PRAISE OF FOLLY. new wine ? or that St. Paul was censured by Festus to have been beside himself? And, since I have had the confidence to go thus far, I shall venture yet a little farther, and be so bold as to say this much more : All that final happiness which Christians, through so many rubs and briars of difficul- ties, contend for, is at last no better than a sort of folly and madness. This, no question, will be thought extravagantly spoken ; but consider awhile, and deliberately examine the case. First, then, the Christians so far agree with the Plato- nists as to believe that the body is no better than a dun- geon or prison for the confinement of the soul. That, therefore, while the sotfl is shackled to the walls of flesh, her soaring wings are impeded, and all her enlivening faculties clogged and fettered by the gross particles of matter, so that she may neither freely range after, nor, when happily overtaken, can quietly contemplate her proper object of truth. Farther, Plato defines philosophy to be the meditation of death, because the one performs the same office with the other ; namely, withdraws the mind from all visible and corporeal objects ; therefore while the soul doth pa- tiently actuate the several organs and members of the body, so long is a man accounted of a good and sound disposition ; but when the soul, weary of her confine- ment, struggles to break jail, and fly beyond her cage of flesh and blood, then a man is censured at least for being maggoty and crack-brained ; nay, if there be any defect in the external organs it is then termed downright madness. Industry. THE PRAISE OF FOU,Y. 317 And yet many times persons thus affected shall have prophetic ecstasies of foretelling things to come, shall in a rapture talk languages they never before learned, and seem in all things actuated by something divine and ex- traordinary; and all this, no doubt, is only the effect of the soul's being more released from its engagement to the body, whereby it can with less impediment exert the energy of life and motion. From hence, no doubt, has sprung an observation of like nature, confirmed now into a settled opinion, that some long experienced souls in the world, before their dislodging, arrive to the height of prophetic spirits. If this disorder arises from an intemperance in religion and too high a strain of devotion, though it be of a some- what differing sort, yet it is so near akin to the former, that a great part of mankind apprehend it as a mere madness ; especially when persons of that superstitious humor are so pragmatical and singular as to separate and live apart as it were from all the world beside. So as they seem to have experienced what Plato dreams to have happened between some, who, enclosed in a dark cave, did only ruminate on the ideas and abstract specu- lations of entities ; and one other of their company who had got abroad into the open light, and at his return tells them what a blind mistake they had lain under, that he had seen the substance of what their dotage of imagination reached only in shadow; that, therefore, he could not but pity and regret their deluding dreams, while they on the other side no less bewailed his frenzy, and turned him out of their society for a lunatic and madman. 318 THE PRAISE OF FOLI Ye most illustrious votaries of folly ! LINES ON THE PRECEDING WORK. THERE'S ne'er a blade of honor in the town, But if you chance to term him fool and clown, Straight satisfaction cries, and then with speed The time, the place, and rapier's length's decreed. Prodigious fops, I'll swear, which can't agree To be call'd what 'tis their happiness to be : Blest Idiots! That in an humble sphere securely move, And there the sweets of a safe dullness prove, Nor envy the proud heights of those who range above, Folly, sure friend of a misguided will, Affords a kind excuse for doing ill ; And Socrates, that prudent, thinking tool, Had the gods lik'd him, would have prov'd a. fool. Methinks our author, when without a flaw, The graces of his mistress he doth draw, Wishes (if Metempsychosis be but true, And souls do change their case, and act anew), ' In his next life he surely might aspire To the dull brains of some soft country squire, Whose head with such like rudiments is fraught, As in his youth his careful grannam taught. And now (dear friend) how shall we to thy brow Pay all those laurels which we justly owe? For thou fresh honors to the work dost bring, And to the theme : nor seems that pleasing thing, Which he so well in Latin hath express'd, Less comical in English garments dress'd ; Thy sentences are all so clearly wrought, And so exactly plac'd is every thought, That, which is more oblig'd we scarce can see The subjedl by thine author, or himself by thee. (327) University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it W88 borrowed. 'D LD-URI A 000 020 401 6 University of Call Southern Regio Library Facili