Part

2004 Praise|             on set days—as Phoebus at Rhodes; at Cyprus, Venus; at Argos,
2005 Pref  |           forgotten sink of filth and ribaldry, but laid before you things
2006 Praise|          therefore he chose rather to ride upon an ass when, if he
2007 Praise|         fourth month;” and again, “He rides Sejanus’s his horse;” and “
2008 Praise|             theft as if I had privily rifled our masters’ desks in that
2009 Praise|               forehead, shake off his rigid principles, and for some
2010 Praise|               these there are some so rigidly religious that their upper
2011 Praise|                sad, sour, unjust, and rigorous to himself, and troublesome
2012 Praise|            all because they have gold rings on their fingers. Nor are
2013 Praise|              charity, they take their rise from the river Nilus; or
2014 Praise|             Lethe (for its springhead rises in the Fortunate Islands,
2015 Praise|          unless he be initiated to my rites and have me propitious to
2016 Praise|           devil, attempt to lessen or rob them of Peter’s patrimony.
2017 Praise|           heart; and lastly, a purple robe, a badge of that charity
2018 Praise|               but just now off in the robes of a king put on the rags
2019 Praise|            the meaning of their linen rochet, is it not a remarkable
2020 Pref  |             rather have it so, that I rode on a hobbyhorse. For what
2021 Praise|         tormenting them with ferules, rods, and whips; and, laying
2022 Praise|            them: for while they daily roll Sisyphus his stone, and
2023 Praise|          Delos, nor Venus-like on the rolling sea, nor in any of blind
2024 Praise|          Speculum Historiale or Gesta Romanorum and expound it allegorically,
2025 Praise|        statuaries. What deity did the Romans ever more religiously adore
2026 Praise|          churches, nay up to the very roof of some of them, did you
2027 Praise|          bugloss, marjoram, trefoils, roses, violets, lilies, and all
2028 Praise|           fifth, to cure sheep of the rot; and so of the rest, for
2029 Praise|             suppose a man were eating rotten stockfish, the very smell
2030 Pref  |                            ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM~to his friend~THOMAS MORE,
2031 Praise|              proceeds that sour look, rough skin, bushy beard, and such
2032 Praise|          pleasant, by which means the roughness of the masculine temper
2033 Praise|              call them, are valiantly routed. As if the Church had any
2034 Praise|              out his disciples not so royally attended as he should have
2035 Praise|       question but he might venture a rubber at cuffs, a man otherwise
2036 Praise|     controversies of those times were rude and blockish in comparison
2037 Praise|             this vileness, ignorance, rudeness, and impudence, they represent
2038 Praise|         clearly expressed in the very rudiments of grammar that the best
2039 Praise|           grow, but, on the contrary, rue, angelica, bugloss, marjoram,
2040 Praise|              behold those innumerable rufflings of mankind, he would think
2041 Praise|             opens a gap to many men’s ruin. Besides, that the fortune
2042 Praise|              a cutpurse—or dig up the ruins of some ancient monument
2043 Praise|            Minos and Numa, both which ruled their foolish multitudes
2044 Praise|            like Alcibiades’ Sileni or rural gods, carry a double face,
2045 Praise|              Folly. Nor do I esteem a rush that call it a foolish and
2046 Praise|              a poor man’s shoe on the Sabbath day; and that a man should
2047 Praise|              no man, you’ll say, ever sacrificed to Folly or built me a temple.
2048 Praise|            heart of the wise is where sadness is, but the heart of fools
2049 Praise|              get one, though with the sale of their coat, and had rather
2050 Praise|               die that day; or do but salute a carved Barbara, in the
2051 Praise|            often as they are devoutly saluted by the name of “Our Masters,”
2052 Praise|              concealed the mystery of salvation from the wise, but revealed
2053 Praise|          crime to degenerate from the sanctity of their prelates. Heidah!
2054 Praise|               a work as numbering the sands—for what offenses mankind
2055 Praise|            became so young again that Sappho fell in love with him. Mine
2056 Praise|             war against the Turks and Saracens; and they would see, I guess,
2057 Praise|         nepenthe; whereas before, you sat as lumpish and pensive as
2058 Praise|             to have intended rather a satire than an oration, and be
2059 Praise|             see, I conceive, how much satisfaction this Self-love, who has
2060 Praise|               the first Chaos, Orcus, Saturn, or Japhet, nor any of those
2061 Praise|           nymphs with their jigs, and satyrs with their antics; while
2062 Praise|               be perhaps a little too saucy to call back again the Muses
2063 Praise|              foolishly committed.” So Saul makes his excuse of David, “
2064 Praise|          sword. And whereas war is so savage a thing that it rather befits
2065 Praise|           Neptune drowns more than he saves: to say nothing of those
2066 Praise|             and discipline brought to savor something like man, if in
2067 Praise|               meaning of those common sayings, “He does not dwell at home,” “
2068 Praise|          oracles. This proposition is scandalous; this irreverent; this has
2069 Praise|             that letter in Hebrew was schin or sin, and that sin in
2070 Praise|            triumphs, no, not with the Scipioes. While yet those learned
2071 Praise|             or hedgehog, to leave his scorebone awhile and come into my
2072 Praise|             what Donatus, do they not scorn in comparison of themselves?
2073 Praise|               fly him as they would a scorpion. Lastly, whoever intend
2074 Praise|              sin, and that sin in the Scotch tongue, as he remembered,
2075 Praise|              music, and feasting. The Scots are proud of their nobility,
2076 Praise|             the gifts of the gods are scrambled, some to one and some to
2077 Praise|             invoke whatever they have scraped from the poets; and in the
2078 Praise|         friendly than when two horses scrub one another? And to say
2079 Praise|              the least regard the sad scruples of those wise men touching
2080 Praise|               profit; whereas if some scurvy wise fellow should step
2081 Praise|               with an Athenian, nor a Scythian for the Fortunate Islands.
2082 Praise|             Venus-like on the rolling sea, nor in any of blind Homer’
2083 Praise|             you should but diligently search the lives of the most sour
2084 Praise|             life to the casualties of seas and winds, which yet no
2085 Praise|            other what they judge most seasonable for the occasion. These
2086 Praise|              mixture and, as it were, seasoning of Folly. For since according
2087 Praise|               inquire after times and seasons, to wit, that they might
2088 Praise|             days, hours, minutes, and seconds, as it were in a mathematical
2089 Praise|              I think not; in the most secret part of your house; nor
2090 Praise|              the veriest bigot of the sect, and if he do not put off
2091 Praise|               I named all the several sects, but only some of the chief;
2092 Praise|          priests that call themselves secular, as if they were initiated
2093 Praise|         whatever happens, they may be secure of the common people. And
2094 Praise|         taking up moneys and changing securities, as we say borrowing of
2095 Praise|             world then be packing and seek out Medeas, Circes, Venuses,
2096       | seeming
2097 Praise|             themselves to be no blind seers.~In like manner cardinals,
2098 Praise|            being got loose from them, sees things truly as they are?
2099 Praise|       youngster, and by and by a grim seignior; now a king, and presently
2100 Praise|          month;” and again, “He rides Sejanus’s his horse;” and “gold
2101 Praise|          first accused and afterwards sentenced him to the drinking of his
2102 Praise|     discovered ideas, universalities, separated forms, first matters, quiddities,
2103 Praise|         doctors, most subtle doctors, seraphic doctors, cherubin doctors,
2104 Praise|           would ever go to it did she seriously consider either the peril
2105 Praise|             force me to a recantation sermon, which if I refuse, they
2106 Praise|             third into a grasshopper, serpent, or the like. As if there
2107 Praise|               much with the people as Sertorius’ invention of his white
2108 Praise|               itching ears. And these serve not only to pass away time
2109 Praise|           nothing more indebted, more servile, more witless, more contemptible,
2110 Praise|          youth, if corrupted with the severity of old age? Lastly, what
2111 Praise|           meditation and, as it were, shadow of that life, it so happens
2112       | shalt
2113 Praise|               were wont to have their shares, till in one of their angry
2114 Praise|           after and commands it to be sheathed; and that it was never heard
2115 Praise|             has little else to do; to shed tears, silly and womanish;
2116 Praise|            that proverb of Aristotle “sheepish manners,” which he tells
2117 Praise|            Christ professes to be the shepherd of this flock and is himself
2118 Praise|             cloud-gathering Jupiter’s shield either beget or propagate
2119 Praise|              men or women and in whom shines the image of that highest
2120 Praise|            than seven of the stoutest ships would be able to carry;
2121 Praise|              a stitch on a poor man’s shoe on the Sabbath day; and
2122 Praise|             oracle. Phoebus sometimes shoots a plague among us. Neptune
2123 Praise|            the people. Nor does their shorn crown in the least admonish
2124 Praise|             things of which they must shortly give an exact account. But
2125 Praise|              and then complain of the shortness of man’s life that is not
2126 Praise|            out, revising, reprinting, showing it to friends, and nine
2127 Praise|               gamesome? And so I have shown you whence the first and
2128 Praise|           Nasty, crumpled, miserable, shriveled, bald, toothless, and wanting
2129 Praise|           orchards. For who would not shun and startle at such a man,
2130 Praise|               I do it, I shall not be shy in the point. I bring them
2131 Praise|      blessings of this life; nor that sibyl in Virgil called Aeneas’
2132 Praise|              it is not my business to sift too narrowly the lives of
2133 Praise|              then laughing, and again sighing. And when they come to themselves,
2134 Praise|              sermons, good endeavors, sighs, and a thousand the like
2135 Praise|               or what the word bishop signifies, to wit, labor, care, and
2136 Praise|               and “gold of Toulouse,” signifying thereby the extremity of
2137 Praise|          tongue?” But why should I be silent in a thing that is more
2138 Praise|            the gods? As also that old Silenus with his country dances,
2139 Praise|          gloves on their hands, but a sincere administration of the Sacraments,
2140 Praise|               many mourners, how many singers, how many almsmen they will
2141 Praise|           made sin that he might heal sinners. Nor did he work this cure
2142 Praise|      excellent than wisdom the son of Sirach, whoever he was, clearly
2143 Praise|          vainglory, a most bewitching siren? And yet ’tis strange it
2144 Praise|             for while they daily roll Sisyphus his stone, and quote you
2145 Praise|         changed to Morychus, for that sitting before the gates of his
2146 Praise|              are. And to these, as in situation, so for manner of living,
2147 Praise|               master of them all, and sixty years of age, who, laying
2148 Praise|        themselves those three hundred sixty-five heavens of Basilides the
2149 Praise|               dead with age, and such skeletons one would think they had
2150 Praise|        revealed to them that an image sketched on the wall with a coal
2151 Praise|              men have extolled to the skies. In a word, this folly is
2152 Praise|          voice, sing out their words, skip up and down, and are ever
2153 Praise|        bargain? For of those that are slain, not a word of them; and
2154 Praise|             cloisters, bridewells, or slaughterhouses—grown old among a company
2155 Praise|            passions, but the worst of slaves, inasmuch as he gives himself
2156 Praise|            and flowers should have so slept when she made man, that
2157 Praise|              days, months, years, age slide away without the least irksomeness.
2158 Praise|             laughed at, and logicians slighted; only the physician is worth
2159 Praise|            bad. And therefore, what I slightly taught before has been to
2160 Praise|               wench, and the more she slights him the more outrageously
2161 Praise|               all points with lances, slings, quarterstaffs, and bombards;
2162 Praise|            the physician with all his slip-slops go a-begging. Lastly, you
2163 Praise|         admits even kings to kiss his slipper; and lastly, to die, uncouth;
2164 Praise|            minds and studies, so many slips, oversights, and chances
2165 Praise|               dresses, washes, baths, slops, perfumes, and those several
2166 Praise|               ever hunger-starved and slovens in their schools—schools,
2167 Praise|           this irreverent; this has a smack of heresy; this no very
2168 Praise|               though it be but as the smallest drop in comparison of that
2169 Praise|             empire has fallen to some smatterer in philosophy or one given
2170 Praise|              greater account of those smatterers at Greek than if they were
2171 Praise|            rotten stockfish, the very smell of which would choke another,
2172 Praise|         garland on her head, and that smells so strong of perfumes, is
2173 Praise|            give their applause with a smile, and, like the ass, shake
2174 Praise|               straight perched up and smiled on my mother. Nor do I envy
2175 Praise|               Self-love; she with the smiling countenance, that is ever
2176 Praise|              doctors of our times and smoke out their eyes with new
2177 Praise|          painting their eyebrows, and smoothing their skins? And now tell
2178 Praise|           polt-foot, another with his smutched muzzle, another with his
2179 Praise|              Pan with his hubbubs; or smutty Vulcan half covered with
2180 Praise|               as they let loose their snakes and put into men’s breasts
2181 Praise|            infamy, dishonesty, racks, snares, treachery, reproaches,
2182 Pref  |                or another Lucian, and snarl at everything. But I would
2183 Praise|         laying traps for one another, snatching, playing, wantoning, growing
2184 Praise|              doubt, to get some small snip of it themselves.~There
2185 Praise|               voice small, their skin soft, as if they imitated a certain
2186 Praise|           what it were to be old, but solace themselves with a perpetual
2187 Praise|           their prelates. Heidah! How soldier-like they bustle about the jus
2188 Praise|               troops and companies of soldiers with which they have managed
2189 Praise|             none in the reputation of soldiery. The Germans pride themselves
2190 Pref  |               age, that can away with solemn titles. No, you’ll meet
2191 Praise|            lifetime appoint with what solemnity they’ll be buried, and particularly
2192 Praise|               that Nature that was so solicitously watchful in the production
2193 Praise|          contracted a lethargy by his solitary living; and another the
2194 Praise|          concluded under folly. Again Solomon, Chapter 15, “Foolishness,”
2195       | somewhere
2196 Praise|       according to his example do the sons of the prophets, who, forcing
2197 Praise|         self-love is no more than the soothing of a man’s self, which,
2198 Praise|         miracles beyond all things of soothsaying, and are so fortunate as
2199 Praise|               infamous appellation of sophi or wise, chose rather to
2200 Praise|           disposed awhile to play the sophist with you; not of their sort
2201 Praise|            never sufficiently praised Sophocles in that his happy elegy
2202 Praise|             Mecaschephim,” witches or sorcerers: for otherwise, perhaps,
2203 Praise|       divinity with such pithless and sordid terms and opinions. Meantime
2204 Praise|        paleness, leanness, crassness, sore eyes, and an old age and
2205 Praise|             to prove it by fallacies, sorites, dilemmas, or other the
2206 Praise|           that to his wife’s no small sorrow, in that she lost both her
2207 Praise|                And therefore they are sorry they are come to themselves
2208 Praise|      knowledge through his neglect or sottishness! And for this also you are
2209 Praise|               grew without plowing or sowing; where neither labor, nor
2210 Praise|             goodly one, no doubt, and spacious enough, lest perhaps their
2211 Praise|               their Law of Moses. The Spaniards give place to none in the
2212 Praise|          superfluity that may be well spared; or if they are forced to
2213 Pref  |              myself? Besides, he that spares no sort of men cannot be
2214 Praise|             mad as the other, for the species of this madness is much
2215 Pref  |               some men’s crabbish and specious arguments. As when one,
2216 Praise|               half blind to play with spectacles? Nay, and when a justly
2217 Praise|            entertains the eyes of the spectators. And what is all this life
2218 Praise|          foolish insipid fable out of Speculum Historiale or Gesta Romanorum
2219 Praise|             that should say these two speeches “matula putes” and “matula
2220 Praise|               But why do I altogether spend my breath in speaking of
2221 Praise|           cut-throats, plowmen, sots, spendthrifts, and such other dregs of
2222 Praise|         idiots, lack-wits, and dolts; splendid titles too, as I conceive
2223 Praise|               Plato teaches us how by splitting one Venus and one Cupid
2224 Pref  |           guilt or fear. Saint Jerome sported in this kind with more freedom
2225 Praise|              defended the Church, the spouse of Christ, when the enemy,
2226 Praise|                And yet from this root sprang all the great acts of the
2227 Praise|         preaching him, but hinder his spreading by their multitudes of laws
2228 Praise|              and some to another. The sprightly delicious wine that drives
2229 Praise|              our River Lethe (for its springhead rises in the Fortunate Islands,
2230 Praise|        chiefest delight of man’s life springs.~But there are some, you’
2231 Praise|              evil, do now and then so sprinkle pleasure with the hopes
2232 Praise|            the world have some little sprinklings of reason more than the
2233 Praise|              nastiness seems absolute spruceness, that stench a perfume,
2234 Praise|              all from what stock I am sprung, with the Muses’ good leave
2235 Praise|               nothing and make such a sputter about terms and words till
2236 Praise|              a father shall swear his squint-eyed child is more lovely than
2237 Praise|            those little tricks than a squirrel? And yet what more loving
2238 Praise|           they hunt every day, keep a stable of fine horses, sell dignities
2239 Praise|              bits, sharp spurs, close stables, arms, blows, rider, and
2240 Praise|          world should be reduced to a staff and a wallet. Whereas now,
2241 Praise|             willingly give over these stage-players that are such ingrateful
2242 Praise|             matter.~But why do I thus staggeringly defend myself with one single
2243 Praise|          person;” lie on booksellers’ stalls; and in the top of every
2244 Praise|       communicated; and that a prince stands in that place that his least
2245 Praise|              Brutus, a third from the star by the tail of Ursa Major.
2246 Praise|            for their furred gowns and starched beards that they look upon
2247 Praise|              Pleasure; she with those staring eyes, moving here and there,
2248 Praise|              they abound with so many starting-holes that Vulcan’s net cannot
2249 Praise|            For who would not shun and startle at such a man, as at some
2250 Praise|           abroad and are yet ready to starve at home. One makes what
2251 Praise|               folly. Divines are half starved, naturalists out of heart,
2252 Praise|             becomes bankrupt. Another starves himself to enrich his heir.
2253 Praise|                or their followers the statuaries. What deity did the Romans
2254 Praise|       themselves in their tallness of stature and skill in magic.~And,
2255 Praise|           thing that keeps youth at a stay and old age afar off;” as
2256 Praise|             is scarce done but dinner stays for them. From thence they
2257 Praise|        allowance, swear and forswear, steal, cozen, and cheat, yet shuffle
2258 Praise|           little there is that is not steeped in gall? To say nothing
2259 Praise|             the opponent were another Stentor.~And next these come our
2260 Praise|             scurvy wise fellow should step up and speak things as they
2261 Praise|              too many things rather a stepdame than a parent to us, has
2262 Praise|            argument, that I no sooner stepped up to speak to this full
2263 Praise|              living,” be witness; who stepping up to speak somewhat, I
2264 Praise|             diligently followed their steps that they’ve almost got
2265 Praise|           himself Telemachus, another Sthenelus, a third Laertes, a fourth
2266 Praise|           also they use somewhat of a sting, but so nevertheless that
2267 Praise|        enduring another that he would stink in his own nostrils, be
2268 Praise|             of the gods that were not stinking and contemptible were he
2269 Praise|            thousand men than to set a stitch on a poor man’s shoe on
2270 Praise|              a man were eating rotten stockfish, the very smell of which
2271 Praise|               which though that great Stoic Seneca most strongly denies,
2272 Praise|            the contrary, if another’s stomach should turn at a sturgeon,
2273 Praise|             he shall make more sudden stops than if he had a wolf before
2274 Praise|               of whom there goes more stories than ordinary, as for example,
2275 Praise|          ceremonies than seven of the stoutest ships would be able to carry;
2276 Pref  |              best disputant More, and stoutly defend your Moriae.~From
2277 Praise|              say before governors and straightly charged them not to inquire
2278 Praise|                that they discourse in strain above mortality as if they
2279 Praise|             what stuff made, how many straws broad their girdles and
2280 Praise|             by or not admitted to the stream of their sacrifices. For
2281 Praise|          leave jewels and gold in the street? In truth, I think not;
2282 Praise|               privilege of divines to stretch heaven, that is Holy Writ,
2283 Praise|          heart itself; and lust, that stretches its empire everywhere. Against
2284 Praise|               as himself calls them, “strifes of words,” if he had thoroughly
2285 Praise|          Jupiter and his thunder in a string. This is my father and in
2286 Praise|              stage should go about to strip him of his disguise and
2287 Praise|              that Bacchus is always a stripling, and bushy-haired? but because
2288 Praise|      tragedians wont to call boys and striplings. And what does that sacred
2289 Praise|               respect, but that being stripped of himself, he shall participate
2290 Praise|             matter; whereas the other strive to pluck them out of their
2291 Praise|              as to the first, if they stroke them handsomely, some part
2292 Praise|              folly and ignorance. And stronger is that of Christ upon the
2293 Praise|               great Stoic Seneca most strongly denies, and takes from a
2294 Praise|             so wonderfully intent and struck with admiration, especially
2295 Praise|       learning, liberty, and justice, studying nothing less than the public
2296 Praise|               their heads are so full stuffed and stretched that I believe
2297 Praise|         Greeks call Moria, the Latins Stultitia, and our plain English Folly.
2298 Praise|             stuff is there which that stump of the fig tree Priapus
2299 Praise|              that he had a company of sturdy servants about him.~Or to
2300 Praise|              stomach should turn at a sturgeon, wherein, I pray, is he
2301 Praise|           much as the shape of a man; stutterers, dotards, toothless, gray-haired,
2302 Praise|              to lie grunting in a hog sty than be exposed with the
2303 Pref  |                I have so moderated my style that the understanding reader
2304 Praise|             of the ancients? When one styles himself Telemachus, another
2305 Praise|              have done, made this new subdivision—for I’ll give you his own
2306 Praise|              faithful counsels I have subjected all things to my dominion
2307 Praise|                what man is that would submit his neck to the noose of
2308 Praise|             that slavery he willingly submits to, while, imitating those
2309 Praise|               s wit, and consequently submitted to his decision of the question.
2310 Praise|               all his magistrates and subordinate officers; that, though he
2311 Praise|             perpetual. And if you all subscribe to this opinion, that nothing
2312 Praise|           that their own conclusions, subscribed by two or three Schoolmen,
2313 Praise|          Virgin’s womb; how accidents subsist in the Eucharist without
2314 Praise|           verb, and the adjective and substantive: and while most of the audience
2315 Praise|          turned out of doors by their substitutes. No, I have statues enough,
2316 Praise|             this syllogism in pieces. Subtly argued, I must confess,
2317 Praise|            But yet I doubt not but to succeed even in this also, if, as
2318 Praise|      philosophers, in whose room have succeeded a kind of people the world
2319 Praise|           less a mystery that runs in succession from one brother to another;
2320 Praise|           they thought themselves the successors of the apostles, they would
2321 Praise|             nurse, forasmuch as I was suckled by two jolly nymphs, to
2322 Praise|              revealed it to babes and sucklings, that is to say, fools.
2323 Praise|             unwonted pleasantness. So suddenly have you cleared your brows,
2324 Praise|            and usury. Again, if a man sue for honors or church preferments,
2325 Praise|         mistake not the book, when he sues unto Moses concerning his
2326 Praise|         taught pressed only meekness, suffering, and contempt of life, who
2327 Praise|         Christ or lay it all on their suffragans, as they call them, or some
2328 Praise|            they, than for a suppliant suitor to flatter the people, to
2329 Praise|              sword.” And now when the sum of all that Christ taught
2330 Praise|           beginning, middle, and end (summum, medium, et ultimum) of
2331 Praise|          admonition.” And when he had sundry times, one after another,
2332 Praise|      everywhere and rendered most men superabundantly happy? As when a fellow,
2333 Praise|              in the philosophical and supercelestial whims of Aristotle and the
2334 Praise|              condemn and fly money as superfluity that may be well spared;
2335 Praise|              the Gospel, but somewhat superior. And therefore, while he
2336 Praise|               discourse did this most superlative theologian beat his brains
2337 Praise|         launch out into this ocean of superstitions? Had I a hundred tongues,
2338 Praise|            and laugh at Christians as superstitious. And much more pleasantly
2339 Praise|               two beverages, and then supper, and after that a banquet,
2340 Praise|         foolish, say they, than for a suppliant suitor to flatter the people,
2341 Praise|           stupid, refreshes the sick, supplies the untractable, joins loves
2342 Praise|              as Horace calls it. This supports the dejected, relieves the
2343 Praise|            way, being a fool himself, supposes all men to be fools like
2344 Praise|             conclusions, corollaries, suppositions, and those so weak and foolish
2345 Praise|             hints and conjectures but suppressing the names. But if anyone
2346 Praise|             the adoption of names and surnames, those divine honors given
2347 Praise|         eternal happiness, yet it far surpasses all worldly delight, though
2348 Praise|               that as princes carry a suspicious eye upon those that are
2349 Praise|               massive is the chain he swags on his shoulders, as if
2350 Praise|              To wit, the spirit shall swallow up the body, as conqueror
2351 Praise|               many watchings, so much sweat, so much vexation and loss
2352 Praise|               other times pestilence, sweeps off many thousands of them
2353 Praise|            with the hopes of good and sweeten men up in their greatest
2354 Praise|      masculine temper is seasoned and sweetened by her folly. For in that
2355 Praise|              conniving, and generally sweetening one another with some small
2356 Praise|             again, David himself thus sweetens God, “And therefore I beseech
2357 Praise|           that everyone likes his own sweeter-kin best, though never so ugly,
2358 Praise|             the sciences and lost the sweetest part of his life in watchings,
2359 Praise|             preachments, and yet most sweetly imitating what rhetoricians
2360 Pref  |             incredible affability and sweetness of temper that you both
2361 Praise|             only authors of sciences, swell themselves with the titles
2362 Praise|          blackamoor white, and lastly swells a gnat to an elephant. In
2363 Praise|             of mathematics, the least swerving from which were a crime
2364 Praise|             themselves, live merrily, swim in pleasure, and in a word
2365 Praise|            not the way of carters and swineherds that have no more wit than
2366 Praise|              a divine that you’d have sworn Scotus himself was revived
2367 Praise|              to wit from the letters, syllables, and the word itself; then
2368 Praise|            good favor we’ll take this syllogism in pieces. Subtly argued,
2369 Praise|     underpropped the other with their syllogistical buttresses. And how great
2370 Pref  |       deformity and the quartan ague; Synescius, baldness; Lucian, the fly
2371 Praise|             it were in a mathematical table? Or what of those who, having
2372 Praise|               All these hang up their tablets, but no one gives thanks
2373 Praise|            what rate soever the world talks of me (for I am not ignorant
2374 Praise|             pride themselves in their tallness of stature and skill in
2375 Praise|            all hours, or has not some tang or other of madness.~And
2376 Praise|              the country of ideas, or Tantalus’ orchards. For who would
2377 Praise|               in Olympus, Jupiter; at Tarentum, Neptune; and near the Hellespont,
2378 Praise|               grease that the poorest tarpaulin would not stoop to take
2379 Praise|           part of it never so much as tasted the least of pleasure; ever
2380 Praise|           more gross and blockish, as tasting, hearing, seeing, smelling,
2381 Praise|        uproars, what bickerings, what taunts, what invectives! If I lie,
2382 Pref  |            profit; whereas he that so taxes the lives of men, without
2383 Praise|              but as Socrates in Plato teaches us how by splitting one
2384 Praise|           grammar, how barbarously or tediously soever compiled, which he
2385 Praise|               of diversions wipe away tediousness, next cousin to the other.~
2386 Praise|             another gets a set of new teeth; another falls desperately
2387 Praise|            such variety of bodies and tempers, who is there that does
2388 Praise|          conscience of evil acts, not terrified with the fables of ghosts,
2389 Praise|            like plagues, or when they terrify some guilty soul with the
2390 Pref  |           that made his last will and testament, of which also even St.
2391 Praise|          knowledge of the Old and New Testaments; what those gloves on their
2392 Praise|             and theologically on this text, “I speak as a fool, I am
2393 Praise|             instead of narration some texts of Scripture, but handle
2394 Praise|              world to be wise men and Thales, we’ll even call them morosophous,
2395 Praise|            has there been who in some thankful oration has set out the
2396 Praise|            Mercury does not cloak his thefts? What buffoonery that Vulcan
2397 Praise|               And as good success had Themistocles in his of the fox and hedgehog.
2398 Praise|         discoursing magisterially and theologically on this text, “I speak as
2399 Praise|                What should I speak of Theophrastus, who being about to make
2400 Praise|                I am more,” drew a new thesis; and, which without the
2401 Praise|        sciences, which that old devil Theuth, the evil genius of mankind,
2402 Praise|            all the names of folly, so thick do they swarm everywhere.
2403 Praise|            religion, and no men swarm thicker in all places than themselves.
2404 Praise|              those things through the thickest darkness that never were.~
2405 Praise|             you were of your father’s thigh! And yet, who had not rather
2406 Praise|         lifetime, it had cleansed and thinned it into such another nothing
2407 Praise|              Corinthians, Chapter the thirteenth. And devoutly, no doubt,
2408 Praise|            the realists, nominalists, Thomists, Albertists, Occamists,
2409 Praise|           pestilence, sweeps off many thousands of them together.~But let
2410 Praise|             change with an Italian, a Thracian with an Athenian, nor a
2411 Praise|            fourth Polycrates, a fifth Thrasymachus. So that there is no difference
2412 Praise|             But I forbear the further threading of proverbs, lest I seem
2413 Praise|              example of Archilochius, threw away his arms and betook
2414 Praise|            living creatures that they thrive best that understand no
2415 Praise|              shall dare to set up his throat, my advice to him is, that
2416 Praise|             heaven is so thwacked and thronged, that though it be of so
2417       | throughout
2418 Praise|             times, one after another, thundered out the same thing, and
2419 Praise|        company of fearful boys with a thundering voice and big looks, tormenting
2420 Praise|               with which heaven is so thwacked and thronged, that though
2421 Praise|               things in St. Paul that thwart themselves, which yet in
2422       | thy
2423 Praise|             greater number being ever tickled at the worst things, because,
2424 Praise|               fierce lions, merciless tigers, and furious leopards. For
2425 Praise|              following the example of Timon, he retire into some desert
2426 Praise|                You have heard of that Timotheus, the most fortunate general
2427 Praise|               manner Paul, writing to Timothy, “But therefore I obtained
2428 Praise|              youth of her grandfather Tithon. I am that Venus by whose
2429 Praise|               said, it was a manifest token of the Divine Trinity; and
2430 Praise|               As, one is good for the toothache; another for groaning women;
2431 Praise|        particularly set down how many torches, how many mourners, how
2432 Praise|             with jealousy not only to torment himself but set all things
2433 Praise|               not how many more; mere torments of wit, and that so great
2434 Praise|              one to the other, as men toss a ball from hand to hand,
2435 Praise|               mind to give some small touches of princes and courts, of
2436 Praise|              his horse;” and “gold of Toulouse,” signifying thereby the
2437 Praise|            eaten out; O Jupiter! what towerings! what triumphs! what commendations!
2438 Praise|              broken speech, chatting, toying, forgetfulness, inadvertency,
2439 Praise|           good fortune in it, are the tragedians wont to call boys and striplings.
2440 Praise|                as if he had seen some tragedy acting, whereas in truth
2441 Praise|               expounder turn all this tragical furniture into a ridiculous
2442 Praise|             much the longer train she trails after her; while one nobleman
2443 Praise|              works for their own, and transfer that glory which others
2444 Praise|               a discrete quantity, is transient; they would not, I conceive,
2445 Praise|       presently that Virgil’s soul is transmigrated into them! But nothing like
2446 Praise|            wits on work to invent and transmit to posterity so many famous,
2447 Praise|              religiously set out with trappings and bosses there wants little
2448 Praise|          themselves, fighting, laying traps for one another, snatching,
2449 Praise|              of sleep, such pains and travail, have the most foolish of
2450 Praise|              in Virgil called Aeneas’ travels mad labors. But there are
2451 Praise|           breaches of trusts, so many treacheries bought off, as it were by
2452 Praise|                by means of which some treacherous persons and mockers have
2453 Praise|            dishonesty, racks, snares, treachery, reproaches, actions, deceits—
2454 Praise|           Which yet were no less than treason to discover, unless, being
2455 Praise|             Lastly, to say nothing of treasons, ill will, and such other
2456 Praise|            warily as if it had been a treasure? In the meantime the husband
2457 Pref  |              is more trifling than to treat of serious matters triflingly,
2458 Praise|          angelica, bugloss, marjoram, trefoils, roses, violets, lilies,
2459 Praise|              the land of Midian shall tremble,” drew this exposition,
2460 Praise|          speak without an odd kind of trembling, like a boy that had got
2461 Praise|          crowd as often as with their triangles, quadrangles, circles, and
2462 Praise|             none but one of their own tribe can understand them, they
2463 Praise|          peasant; now a god, and in a trice again an ordinary fellow.
2464 Praise|            Bernard, but not without a trick. And these are so foolish
2465 Praise|          Again, she that has but once tried what it is, would she, do
2466 Pref  |                for as nothing is more trifling than to treat of serious
2467 Pref  |              treat of serious matters triflingly, so nothing carries a better
2468 Praise|               dice, drinking healths, trolling it round, dancing the cushion,
2469 Praise|             expound it allegorically, tropologically, and anagogically. And after
2470 Praise|            One shall show you a large trough full of all kinds of fish;
2471 Praise|               speech, but so much the truer. Nor would I have you think
2472 Praise|               them that put off their trumperies at vast rates, yet rove
2473 Praise|           Horace, “What does all this trumpery drive at?” at last he brought
2474 Praise|            than that Folly be her own trumpet? For who can set me out
2475 Praise|            are close engaged “and the trumpets make an ugly noise,” what
2476 Praise|               too that would not have trusted them with a person unworthy;
2477 Praise|           grave, serious matters, and trusting to their own parts and learning
2478 Praise|          deceits, so many breaches of trusts, so many treacheries bought
2479 Praise|              a dog? And yet what more trusty? What has more of those
2480 Praise|         beyond man. Go to then, let’s try how demonstrable this is;
2481 Praise|             and full pampered body is Tryphe, Wantonness; and, as to
2482 Praise|             books with the “Tale of a Tub,” or, according to the philosophers,
2483 Praise|            all kinds of fish; another tumble you out so many bushels
2484 Praise|               their angry humors they tumbled him, together with Ate,
2485 Praise|            learned it from our common tumblers, though yet they come short
2486 Praise|               the ancient heroes. The Turk, and all that sink of the
2487 Praise|           sleep and idleness. Another turmoils himself about other men’
2488 Praise|          dispute of fasting, from the twelve signs of the zodiac; or,
2489 Praise|           tormented himself for above twenty years in the study of grammar,
2490 Praise|             and yet, before I do it, ’twill not be amiss if I briefly
2491 Praise|              while Pan makes them all twitter with some coarse ballad,
2492 Praise|             second in M, the third in U, there was in it an ineffable
2493 Praise|               end (summum, medium, et ultimum) of all. Nay, the mystery
2494 Praise|             through ignorance, partly unadvisedness, and sometimes through forgetfulness
2495 Praise|             not philosophers; who how unapt they are even for common
2496 Praise|             old age, and grievous our unavoidable death? As also what troops
2497 Praise|             did it ignorantly through unbelief.” And what is the meaning
2498 Praise|               wholly on God, the most unchangeable of all things; and next
2499 Praise|         hatchet, and the credit of so uncontrollable an author. “Pray conceive
2500 Praise|          slipper; and lastly, to die, uncouth; and to be stretched on
2501 Praise|         substance, a thing created or uncreated. They detest and abominate
2502 Praise|      stretched out, the hair long and uncut, and have three rays about
2503 Praise|              with his shoulders, they underpropped the other with their syllogistical
2504 Praise|              either drink or begone,” undertakes to disprove a common received
2505 Praise|     subtleties of words. The fool, in undertaking and venturing on the business