In Praise of Folly Part 2

With what highest advances of policy could Sertorius have kept the Barbarians so well in awe, as by a white hart, which he pretended was presented to him by Diana, and brought him intelligence of all his enemies' designs? What was Lycurgus his grand argument for demonstrating the force of education, but only the bringing out two whelps of the same b.i.t.c.h, differently brought up, and placing before them a dish, and a live hare; the one, that had been bred to hunting, ran after the game; while the other, whose kennel had been a kitchen, presently fell a licking the platter. Thus the before-mentioned Sertorius made his soldiers sensible that wit and contrivance would do more than bare strength, by setting a couple of men to the plucking off two horses'

tails; the first pulling at all in one handful, tugged in vain; while the other, though much the weaker, s.n.a.t.c.hing off one by one, soon performed his appointed task.

Instances of like nature are Minos and king Numa, both which fooled the people into obedience by a mere cheat and juggle; the first by pretending he was advised by Jupiter, the latter by making the vulgar believe he had the G.o.ddess _AEgeria_ a.s.sistant to 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 rigorous laws of Plato, to the severe injunctions of Aristotle? or the more unpracticable tenets of Socrates? No, these would have been too straight and galling, there not being allowance enough made for the infirmities of the people.

To pa.s.s to another head, what was it made the Decii so forward to offer themselves up as a sacrifice for an atonement to the angry G.o.ds, 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 men? What is more unreasonable and foppish (say they) than for any man, out of ambition to some office, to bow, to sc.r.a.pe and cringe to the gaping rabble, to purchase their favour 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 bra.s.s, and put up in the market place for a monument of their popularity? Add to this, the affectation of new t.i.tles and distinctive badges of honour; nay, the very deifying of such as were the most b.l.o.o.d.y tyrants. These are so extremely ridiculous, that there is need of more than one Democritus 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 several dress, governs cities, appoints magistrates, and supports judicatures; and, in short, makes the whole course of man's life a mere children's play, and worse than push-pin diversion. The invention of all arts and sciences are likewise owing to the same cause: for what sedentary, thoughtful men would have beat their brains in the search of new and unheard-of-mysteries, if not egged on by the bubbling hopes of credit and reputation? They think a little glittering flash of vain-glory is a sufficient reward for all their sweat, and toil, and tedious drudgery, while they that are supposedly more foolish, reap advantage of the others' labours.

And now since I have made good my t.i.tle to valour and industry, what if I challenge an equal share of wisdom? How! this (you will say) is absurd and contradictory; the east and west may as soon shake hands as Folly and Wisdom be reconciled. Well, but have a little patience and I will warrant you I will make out my claim. First then, if wisdom (as must be confessed) is no more than a readiness of doing good, and an expedite method of becoming serviceable to the world, to whom does this virtue more properly belong? To the wise man, who partly out of modesty, partly out of cowardice, can proceed resolutely in no attempt; or to the fool, that goes hand over head, leaps before he looks, and so ventures through the most hazardous undertaking without any sense or prospect of danger?

In the undertaking any enterprize the wise man shall run to consult with his books, and daze himself with poring upon musty authors, while the dispatchful fool shall rush blundy on, and have done the business, while the other is thinking of it. For the two greatest lets and impediments to the issue of any performance are modesty, which casts a mist before men's eyes; and fear, which makes them shrink back, and recede from any proposal: both these are banished and cashiered by Folly, and in their stead such a habit of fool-hardiness introduced, as mightily contributes to the success of all enterprizes. Farther, if you will have wisdom taken in the other sense, of being a right judgment 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 Ja.n.u.s'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 as that which at first blush proves alive, is in truth dead; and that again which appears as dead, at a nearer view proves to be alive: beautiful seems ugly, wealthy poor, scandalous is thought creditable, prosperous pa.s.ses 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 l.u.s.ts and pa.s.sions.

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

Well, but what is the meaning (will some say) of all this? Why, observe the application. If any one in a play-house be so impertinent and rude as to rifle the actors of their borrowed clothes, make them lay down the character a.s.sumed, and force them to return to their naked selves, would not such a one wholly discompose and spoil the entertainment? And would he not deserve to be hissed and thrown stones at till the pragmatical fool could learn better manners? For by such a disturbance the whole scene will be altered: such as acted the men will perhaps appear to be women: he that was dressed up for a young brisk lover, will be found a rough old fellow; and he that represented a king, will remain but a mean ordinary serving-man. 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 comedy, where every one in the tire-room is first habited suitably to the part he is to act; and as it is successively their turn, out they come on the stage, where he that now personates a prince, shall in another part of the same play alter his dress, and become a beggar, all things being in a mask and particular disguise, or 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 G.o.d, is in truth worse than a brute, being made captive to the tyranny of pa.s.sion; that the other, who bears the character of a king, is indeed the most slavish of serving-men, in being subject to the mastership of l.u.s.t and sensuality; that a third, who vaunts so much of his pedigree, is no better than a b.a.s.t.a.r.d for degenerating from virtue, which ought to be of greatest consideration in heraldry, and so shall go on in exposing all the rest; would not any one think such a person quite frantic, and ripe for bedlam? For as nothing is more silly than preposterous wisdom, so is there nothing more indiscreet than an unreasonable reproof. And therefore he is to be hooted out of all society that will not be pliable, conformable, and willing to suit his humour with other men's, remembering the law of clubs and meetings, that he who will not do as the rest must get him out of the company. And it is certainly one great degree of wisdom for every one to consider that he is but a man, and therefore he should not pitch his soaring thoughts beyond the level of mortality, but imp the wings of his towering ambition, and obligingly submit and condescend to the weakness of others, it being many times a piece of complaisance to go out of the road for company's sake.

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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 a.s.sert, yet it is not so strange as true.

For the better making it out it might perhaps be requisite to invoke the aid of the muses, to whom the poets devoutly apply themselves upon far more slender occasions. Come then and a.s.sist, ye Heliconian la.s.ses, 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 acknowledged, that all the pa.s.sions are listed under my regiment, since this is resolved to be the only distinction betwixt a wise man and a fool, that this latter is governed by pa.s.sion, the other guided by reason: and therefore the Stoics look upon pa.s.sions no other than as the infection and malady of the soul that disorders the const.i.tution of the whole man, and by putting the spirits into a feverish ferment many times occasion some mortal distemper. And yet these, however decried, are not only our tutors to instruct us towards the attainment of wisdom, but even bolden us likewise, and spur us on to a quicker dispatch of all our undertakings. This, I suppose, will be stomached by the stoical Seneca, who pretends that the only emblem of wisdom is the man without pa.s.sion; whereas the supposing any person to be so, is perfectly to unman him, or else transforming him into some fabulous deity that never was, nor ever will be; nay, to speak more plain, it is but the making him a mere statue, immoveable, senseless, and altogether inactive. And if this be their wise man, let them take him to themselves, and remove him into Plato's commonwealth, the new Atlantis, or some other-like fairy land.

For who would not hate and avoid such a person as should be deaf to all the dictates of common sense? that should have no more power of love or pity than a block or stone, that remains heedless of all dangers? that thinks he can never mistake, but can foresee all contingencies at the greatest distance, and make provision for the worst presages? that feeds upon himself and his own thoughts, that monopolises health, wealth, power, dignity, and all to himself? that loves no man, nor is beloved of any? that has the impudence to tax even divine providence of ill contrivance, and proudly grudges, nay, tramples under foot all other men's reputation; and this is he that is the Stoic's complete wise man.

But prithee what city would choose such a magistrate? what army would be willing to serve under such a commander? or what woman would be content with such a do-little husband? who would invite such a guest? or what servant would be retained by such a master? The most illiterate mechanic would in all respects be a more acceptable man, who would be frolicsome with his wife, free with his friends, jovial at a feast, pliable in converse, and obliging to all company. But I am tired out with this part of my subject, and so must pa.s.s to some other topics.

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And now were any one placed on that tower, from whence Jove is fancied by the poets to survey the world, he would all around discern how many grievances and calamities our whole life is on every side encompa.s.sed with: how unclean our birth, how troublesome our tendance in the cradle, how liable our childhood is to a thousand misfortunes, how toilsome and full of drudgery our riper years, how heavy and uncomfortable our old age, and lastly, how unwelcome the unavoidableness of death. Farther, in every course of life how many wracks there may be of torturing diseases, how many unhappy accidents may casually occur, how many unexpected disasters may arise, and what strange alterations may one moment produce? Not to mention such miseries as men are mutually the cause of, as poverty, imprisonment, slander, 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.

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How mankind became environed with such hard circ.u.mstances, or what deity imposed these plagues, as a penance on rebellious mortals, I am not now at leisure to enquire: but whoever seriously takes them into consideration must needs commend the valour of the Milesian virgins, who voluntarily killed themselves to get rid of a troublesome world: and how many wise men have taken the same course of becoming their own executioners; among whom, not to mention Diogenes, Xenocrates, Cato, Ca.s.sius, Brutus, and other heroes, the self-denying Chiron is never enough to be commended; who, when he was offered by Apollo the privilege of being exempted from death, and living on to the world's end, he refused the enticing proposal, as deservedly thinking it a punishment rather than a reward.

But if all were thus wise you see how soon the world would be unpeopled, and what need there would be of a second Prometheus, to plaister up the decayed image of mankind. I therefore come and stand in this gap of danger, and prevent farther mischief; partly by ignorance, partly by inadvertence; by the oblivion of whatever would be grating to remember, and the hopes of whatever may be grateful to expect, together palliating all griefs with an intermixture of pleasure; whereby I make men so far from being weary of their lives, that when their thread is spun to its full length, they are yet unwilling to die, and mighty hardly brought to take their last farewell of their friends. Thus some decrepit old fellows, that look as hollow as the grave into which they are falling, that rattle in the throat at every word they speak, that can eat no meat but what is tender enough to suck, that have more hair on their beard than they have on their head, and go stooping toward the dust they must shortly return to; whose skin seems already drest into parchment, and their bones already dried to a skeleton; these shadows of men shall be wonderful ambitious of living longer, and therefore fence off the attacks of death with all imaginable sleights and impostures; one shall new dye his grey hairs, for fear their colour should betray his age; another shall spruce himself up in a light periwig; a third shall repair the loss of his teeth with an ivory set; and a fourth perhaps shall fall deeply in love with a young girl, and accordingly court her with as much of gaiety and briskness as the liveliest spark in the whole town: and we cannot but know, that for an old man to marry a young wife without a portion, to be a cooler to other men's l.u.s.t, is grown so common, that it is become the a-la-mode of the times. And what is yet more comical, you shall have some wrinkled old women, whose very looks are a sufficient antidote to lechery, that shall be canting out, _Ah, life is a sweet thing_, and so run a caterwauling, and hire some strong-backed stallions 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-gla.s.s, go naked-necked, bare-breasted, be tickled at a s.m.u.tty jest, dance among the young girls, write love-letters, and do all the other little knacks of decoying hot-blooded suitors; and in the meanwhile, however they are laughed at, they enjoy themselves to the full, live up 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 had not much rather live like fools, than die like dogs?

But what matter is it if these things are resented by the vulgar? Their ill word is no injury to fools, who are either altogether insensible of any affront, or at least lay it not much to heart. If they were knocked on the head, or had their brains dashed out, they would have some cause to complain; but alas, slander, calumny, and disgrace, are no other way injurious than as they are interpreted; nor otherwise evil, than as they are thought to be so: what harm is it then if all persons deride and scoff you, if you bear but up in your own thoughts, and be yourself thoroughly conceited of your deserts? And prithee, why should it be thought any scandal to be a fool, since the being so is one part of our nature and essence; and as so, our not being wise can no more reasonably be imputed as a fault, than it would be proper to laugh at a man because he cannot fly in the air like birds and fowls; because he goes not on all four 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, because he was never taught his grammar; and an ox miserable, for that he never learnt to fence: but sure as a horse for not knowing a letter is nevertheless valuable, so a man, for being a fool, is never the more unfortunate, it being by nature and providence so ordained for each.

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Ay, but (say our patrons of wisdom) the knowledge of arts and sciences is purposely attainable by men, that the defect of natural parts may be supplied by the help of acquired: as if it were probable that nature, which had been so exact and curious in the mechanism of flowers, herbs, and flies, should have bungled most in her masterpiece, and made man as it were by halves, to be afterward polished and refined by his own industry, in the attainment of such sciences as the Egyptians feigned were invented by their G.o.d Theuth, as a sure plague and punishment to mankind, being so far from augmenting their happiness, that they do not answer that end they were first designed for, which was the improvement of memory, as Plato in his Phaedrus does wittily observe.

In the first golden age of the world there was no need of these perplexities; there was then no other sort of learning but what was naturally collected from every man's common 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 rhetoric, where no difference arose to require any laborious decision?

And as little reason had they to be tied up by any laws, since the dictates of nature and common morality were restraint and obligation sufficient: and as to all the mysteries of providence, they made them rather the object of their wonder, than their curiosity; and therefore were not so presumptuous as to dive into the depths of nature, to labour for the solving all phenomena in astronomy, or to wrack their brains in the splitting of ent.i.ties, 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.

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Thus was ignorance, in the infancy of the world, as much the parent of happiness as it has been since of devotion: but as soon as the golden age began by degrees to degenerate into more drossy metals, then were arts likewise invented; yet at first but few in number, and those rarely understood, till in farther process of time the superst.i.tion of the Chaldeans, and the curiosity of the Grecians, sp.a.w.ned 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 esteemed 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 fortune is to be poor, and the logician may shut his fist and grasp the wind.

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

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

Next to the physician comes (he, who perhaps will commence a suit with me for not being placed before him, I mean) the lawyer, who is so silly as to be _ignoramus_ to a proverb, and yet by such are all difficulties resolved, all controversies determined, and all affairs managed so much to their own advantage, that they get those estates to themselves which they are employed to recover for their clients: while the poor divine in the mean time shall have the lice crawl upon his thread-bare gown, before, by all his sweat and drudgery, he can get money enough to purchase a new one. As those arts therefore are most advantageous to their respective professors which are farthest distant from wisdom, so are those persons 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 our finite beings. Nature glitters most in her own plain, homely garb, and then gives the greatest l.u.s.tre when she is unsullied from all artificial garnish.

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

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 so long till he draw his guts after him for trapping, and at last falls down, and bites the ground instead of gra.s.s; not to mention the penalty of his jaws being curbed, his tail docked, his back wrung, his sides spur-galled, his close imprisonment in a stable, his rapshin and fetters when he runs a gra.s.s, and a great many other plagues, which he might have avoided, if he had kept to that first station of freedom which nature placed him in. How much more desirable is the unconfined range of flies and birds, who living by instinct, would want nothing to complete their happiness, if some well-employed Domitian would not persecute the former, nor the sly fowler lay snares and gins for the entrapping of the other? And if young birds, before their unfledged wings can carry them from their nests, are caught, and pent up in a cage, for the being taught to sing, or whistle, all their new tunes make not half so sweet music as their wild notes, and natural melody: so much does that which is but rough-drawn by nature surpa.s.s and excel all the additional paint and varnish of art And we cannot sure but commend and admire that Pythagorean c.o.c.k, which (as Lucian relates) had been successively a man, a woman, a prince, a subject, a fish, a horse, and a frog; after all his experience, he summed up his judgment in this censure, that man was the most wretched and deplorable of all creatures, all other patiently grazing within the enclosures of nature, while man only broke out, and strayed beyond those safer limits, which he was justly confined to. And Gryllus is to be adjudged wiser than the much-counselling Ulysses, in as much as when by the enchantment of Circe he had been turned into a hog, he would not lay down his swinishness, nor forsake his beloved sty, to run the peril of a hazardous voyage.

For a farther confirmation whereof I have the authority of Homer, that captain of all poetry, who, as he gives to mankind in general, the epithet of wretched and unhappy, so he bestows in particular upon Ulysses the t.i.tle of miserable, which he never attributes to Paris, Ajax, Achilles, or any other of the commanders; and that for this reason, because Ulysses was more crafty, cautious, and wise, than any of the rest.

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As those therefore fall shortest of happiness that reach highest at wisdom, meeting with the greater repulse for soaring beyond the boundaries of their nature, and without remembering themselves to be but men, like the fallen angels, daring them to vie with Omnipotence, and giant-like scale heaven with the engines of their own brain; so are those most exalted in the road of bliss that degenerate nearest into brutes, and quietly divest themselves of all use and exercise of reason.

And this we can prove by a familiar instance. As namely, can there be any one sort of men that enjoy themselves better than those which we call idiots, changelings, fools and naturals? It may perhaps sound harsh, but upon due consideration it will be found abundantly true, that these persons in all circ.u.mstances 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 p.r.i.c.ks of conscience; they are not frighted with any bugbear stories of another world; they startle not at the fancied appearance of ghosts, or apparitions; they are not wracked with the dread of impending mischiefs, nor bandied with the hopes of any expected enjoyments: in short, they are una.s.saulted 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, that a gross and unavoidable ignorance does not only extenuate and abate from the aggravation, but wholly expiate the guilt of any immorality.

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Come now then as many of you as challenge the respect of being accounted wise, ingenuously confess how many insurrections of rebellious thoughts, and pangs of a labouring mind, ye are perpetually thrown and tortured with; reckon up all those inconveniences that you are unavoidably subject to, and then tell me whether fools, by being exempted from all 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 nature of good to be communicative, so they impart their mirth to others, by making sport for the whole company they are at any time engaged in, as if providence purposely designed them for an antidote to melancholy: whereby they make all persons so fond of their society, that they are welcomed to all places, hugged, caressed, and defended, a liberty given them of saying or doing anything; so well beloved, that none dares to offer them the least injury; nay, the most ravenous beasts of prey will pa.s.s 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 counsellors, whom they maintain more for fashion-sake than good-will; nor is it so strange that these fools should be preferred before graver politicians, since these last, by their harsh, sour advice, and ill-timing the truth, are fit only to put a prince out of the humour, while the others laugh, and talk, and joke, without any danger of disobliging.

It is one farther very commendable property of fools, that they always speak the truth, than which there is nothing more n.o.ble and heroical.

For so, though Plato relate it as a sentence of Alcibiades, that in the sea of drunkenness truth swims uppermost, and so wine is the only teller of truth, yet this character may more justly be a.s.sumed by me, as I can make good from the authority of Euripides, who lays down this as an axiom _uwpa uwpos heyei_. Children and fools always speak the truth.

Whatever the fool has in his heart he betrays it in his face; or what is more notifying, 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 time requires: whereby he can in a trice so alter his judgment, as to prove that to be now white, which he had just before swore to be black; like the satyr at his porridge, blowing hot and cold at the same breath; in his lips professing one thing, when in his heart he means another.

Furthermore, princes in their greatest splendour seem upon this account unhappy, in that they miss the advantage of being told the truth, and are shammed off by a parcel of insinuating courtiers, that acquit themselves as flatterers more than as friends. But some will perchance object, that princes do not love to hear the truth, and therefore wise men must be very cautious how they behave themselves before them, lest they should take too great a liberty in speaking what is true, rather than what is acceptable. This must be confessed, truth indeed is seldom palatable to the ears of kings; yet fools have so great a privilege as to have free leave, not only to speak bare truths, but the most bitter ones too; so as the same reproof, which had it come from the mouth of a wise man would have cost him his head, being blurted out by a fool, is not only pardoned, but well taken, and rewarded. For truth has naturally a mixture of pleasure, if it carry with it nothing of offence to the person whom it is applied to; and the happy knack of ordering it so is bestowed only on fools. 'Tis for the same reason that this sort of men are more fondly beloved by women, who like their tumbling them about, and playing with them, though never so boisterously; pretending to take that only in jest, which they would have to be meant in earnest, as that s.e.x is very ingenious in palliating, and dissembling the bent of their wanton inclinations.

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

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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.

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 upon books, and trudging after learning, in the pursuit whereof he squanders away the pleasantest time of his life in watching, sweat, and fasting; and in his latter days he never tastes one mouthful of delight, but is always stingy, poor, dejected, melancholy, burthensome to himself, and unwelcome to others, pale, lean, thin-jawed, sickly, contracting by his sedentariness such hurtful distempers as bring him to an untimely death, like roses plucked before they shatter. Thus have you, the draught of a wise man's happiness, more the object of a commiserating pity, than of an ambitioning envy.

But now again come the croaking Stoics, and tell me in mood and figure, that nothing is more miserable than the being mad: but the being a 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 subtlety, 'tis true; but as Socrates in Plato makes two Venuses and two Cupids, and shews how their actions and properties ought not to be confounded; so these disputants, if they had not been mad themselves, should have distinguished between a double madness in others: and there is certainly a great difference in the nature as well as in the degrees of them, and they are not both equally scandalous: for Horace seems to take delight in one sort, when he says:--

_Does welcome frenzy make me thus mistake?_

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

_If you will proceed to these your mad attempts._