CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A 
 COLLECTION MADE BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 1854-1919 
 
 AND BEQUEATHED TO 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PA 8514.E5 1876 ^j 
 
 In praise o» Jolly 
 
 3 1924 026 499 396 
 
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 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://archive.org/details/cu31924026499396 
 
ERASMUS 
 
 IN 
 
 PRAISE 
 
 OF 
 
 FOLLY, 
 
 Illustrated with many curious CUTS, Designed, 
 Drawn, and Etched by Hans Holbein, 
 
 WITH PORTRAIT, 
 
 LIFE OF ERASMUS. 
 
 AND HIS 
 
 Epistle addressed to Sir Thomas More. 
 
 LONDON: 
 REEVES & TURNER, 196, STRAND, W.C. 
 
 1876. 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 ERASMUS, 
 
 T7 RASMUS, so deservedly famous for his 
 ■^ admirable writings, the vast extent of his 
 learning, his great candour 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 iind 
 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 prefixed to the 
 above-mentioned London edition, fixes it in the 
 year 1465 ; as does his epitaph at Basil. But 
 
iv The Life of Erasmus. 
 
 as the inscription on his statue at Rotterdam, 
 the place of his nativity, may reasonably be sup- 
 posed the most authentic, we have followed that. 
 His mother was the daughter of a physician 
 at Sevenbergen in Holland, with whom his 
 father contracted an acquaintance, and had cor- 
 respondence 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 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 profession, 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 
 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 any more. Thus he left her who was to 
 be his wife big with child, and made the best of 
 
The Life of Erasmus. v 
 
 his way to Rome. Being an admirable master 
 of the pen, he made a very genteel livelihood 
 by transcribing most authors of note (for print- 
 ing was not in use). He for some time lived at 
 large, but afterwards applied close to study, 
 made great progress in the Greek and Latin 
 languages, and in the civil law ; for Rome at 
 that time was full of learned men. When his 
 friends knew he was at Rome, they sent him 
 word that the 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 of the learned men of that 
 age, who affected to give their names a Greek 
 or Latin turn) his was turned into Erasmus, 
 which in Greek has the same signification. He 
 
vl The Life of Erasmus. 
 
 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 pro- 
 ficient ; 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 contagion daily increasing, 
 and having swept away the family where he 
 boarded, he was obliged to return home. His 
 father Gerard was so concerned at her death 
 that he grew melancholy, and died soon after : 
 neither of his parents being much above forty 
 when they died, 
 
 Erasmus had three guardians assigned him, 
 the chief of whom was Peter Winkel, school- 
 master 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 
 
The Life of Erasmus. vii 
 
 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 importuned 
 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 life, but he could not re- 
 concile 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 threaten- 
 ing, 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 guardianship 
 from that moment. Young Erasmus replied, 
 that he took him at his word, since he was old 
 enoup-h now to look out for himself. When 
 
viii The Life of Erasmus. 
 
 Winkel found that threats did not avail, he 
 employed his brother, who was the other guar- 
 dian, 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 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 mem. 
 ber of their fraternity. Not long after this, he 
 had the honour to be known to Henry a Bergis, 
 bishop of Cambray, who having some hopes of 
 
The Life of Erasmus. ix 
 
 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 affec- 
 tion ; 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 College, but 
 indisposition obliged him to return to the bishop, 
 by whom he was honourably entertained. Find- 
 ing his health restored, he made a journey to 
 Holland, intending to settle there, but was per- 
 suaded to go a second time to Paris ; where, 
 having no patron to support him, himself says, 
 he rather made a shift to live, than could be 
 said to study. He next visited England, where 
 he was received with great respect ; and as 
 appears by several of his letters, he honoured 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 describes their innocent free- 
 
X The Life of Erasmus. 
 
 dom : " When you come into a gentleman's 
 house you are allowed the favour to salute them, 
 and the same when you take leave," He was 
 particularly acquainted with Sir Thomas More, 
 Colet, dean of Saint Paul's, Grocinus, Linacer, 
 Latimer, and many others of the most eminent 
 of that time ; and passed some years at Cam- 
 bridge. In his way for France he had the mis- 
 fortune to be stripped of everything ; but he did 
 not revenge this injury by any unjust reflection 
 on the country. Not meeting with the prefer- 
 ment 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 have failed to have made his fortune, had 
 he not been prevailed upon by the great pro- 
 mises of his friends in England to return thither 
 on Henry Vlllth coming to the crown. He 
 
The Life of Erasmus. xi 
 
 was taken into favour 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 favourite of Warham, 
 between whom and Wolsey there was perpetual 
 clashing, we know not ; however, being disap- 
 pointed, 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 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 
 labouring a whole month under that disorder, 
 died on the 22nd of July, 1536, in the house of 
 Jerome Frobenius, son of John, the famous 
 printer. He was honourably interred, and the 
 city of Basil still pays the highest respect to the 
 memory of so great a man. 
 
xii The Life of Erasmus. 
 
 •a- iTT Y 
 
 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 promoted a 
 purity of style as well as simplicity of worship. 
 This drew on him the hatred of "the ecclesiastics, 
 who were no less bigotted to their barbarisms in 
 language and philosophy, than they were to 
 their superstitious and gaudy ceremonies in reli- 
 gion ; they murdered him in their dull treatises, 
 libelled 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 persiiaded to leave her communion. 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 
 Luther imposed on her a prudential necessity of 
 not disobliging her friends, that she might with 
 more united strength oppose the common 
 
The Life of Erasmus. xiii 
 
 enemy ; and patiently bore what at any other 
 time she would have resented. Perhaps no 
 man has obliged the public with a greater num- 
 ber 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 bookseller in Paris 
 sold twenty thousand at one impression. 
 
ERAS M U S's 
 
 EPISTLE 
 
 TO 
 
 Sir THOMAS MORE. 
 
 |N 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 
 
xvi Erasmus's Epistle 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 panegyrick 
 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 distant from the signification, 
 of it, and that in all men's judgments is vastly 
 wide. In the next place, I supposed that this 
 kind of sporting wit would be by you more 
 especially accepted of, by you. Sir, that are 
 wont with this sort 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 Democritus 
 junior : for truly, as you do from a singular vein 
 
 * Moipia. 
 
Sir Thomas More. xvii 
 
 of wit very much dissent from the common herd 
 of mankind ; so, by an incredible affability and 
 pliableness of temper, you have the art of suit- 
 ing your humour 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 want- 
 ing some quarrelsome persons that will shew 
 their teeth, and pretend these fooleries are 
 either too buffoon-like for a grave divine, or too 
 satyrical for a meek christian, and so will 
 exclaim against me as if I were vamping up 
 some old farce, or acted anew the Lucian again 
 with a peevish snarling at all things. But 
 those who are offended at the lightness and 
 pedantry of this subject, I would have them 
 consider that I do not set myself for the first 
 
 example of this kind, but that the same has 
 
 5 
 
xviii Erasmus's Epistle to 
 
 been oft done by many considerable 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. Poly- 
 crates commended the cruelty of Busiris ; and 
 I Socrates, that corrects him for this, did as much 
 for the injustice of Glaucus. Favorinus extolled 
 Thersites, and wrote in praise of a quartan ague. 
 Synesius pleaded in behalf of baldness ; and 
 Lucian defended a sipping fly. Seneca drol- 
 lingly related the deifying of Claudius ; Plutarch 
 the dialogue betwixt Gryllus and Ulysses ; 
 Lucian and Apuleius the story of an ass ; and 
 somebody else records the last will of a hog, of 
 which St. Hierom makes mention. So that if 
 they please, let themselves think the worst of 
 me, and fancy to themselves that I was all this 
 while a playing at push-pin, or riding astride on 
 a hobby-horse. For how unjust is it, if when 
 we allow different recreations to each particular 
 
Sir Thomas More, xix 
 
 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 descants in 
 commendation of rhetoric or philosophy, another 
 in a fulsome harangue sets forth the praise of 
 his nation, a third makes a zealous invitation to 
 a holy war with the Turks, another confidently 
 sets up for a fortune-teller, and a fifth states 
 questions upon mere impertinences. But as 
 nothing is more childish than to handle a serious 
 subject in a loose, wanton style, so is there 
 nothing more pleasant than so to treat of trifles, 
 as to make them seem nothing less than what 
 their name imports. As to what relates to 
 myself, I must be forced to submit to the judg- 
 ment of others ; yet, except I am too partial to 
 be judge in my own case, I am apt to believe I 
 
XX Erasmus's Epistle to 
 
 have praised Folly in such a manner as not to 
 have deserved the name of fool for my pams. 
 To reply now to the objection of satyricalness, 
 wits have been always allowed this privilege, 
 that they might be smart upon any transactions 
 of life, if so be their liberty did not extend to 
 railing ; which makes me wonder at the tender- 
 eared humour of this age, which will admit of 
 no address without the prefatory repetition of 
 all formal titles; nay, you may find some so 
 preposterously devout, that they will sooner 
 wink at the greatest affront against our Saviour, 
 than be content that a prince, or a pope, should 
 be nettled 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 particular 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 indif- 
 
Sir Thomas More. xxi 
 
 ferentiy 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 g^ilt, 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! so far imitate Juvenal, 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 reprehended by Folly, which 
 since we have feigned as speaking, we must 
 keep up that character which is suitable to the 
 person introduced. 
 
XXll 
 
 Erasmus's Epistle, &c. 
 
 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 pro- 
 tection. Farewell. 
 
On the Argument and Design of the 
 following Oration. 
 
 YyHATE'ER tlie modern satyrs o' th' stage, 
 
 To jerk the failures of a sliding agfe, 
 Have lavishly expos'd to public view, 
 For a discharge to all from envy due. 
 Here in as lively colours naked lie. 
 With equal wit, and more of modesty. 
 Those poets, with their free disclosing arts. 
 Strip vice so near to its uncomely parts. 
 Their libels prove but lessons, and they teach 
 Those very crimes which they intend t' impeach : 
 While here so wholesome all, tho' sharp t' th' taste, 
 So briskly free, yet so resolv'dly chaste ; 
 The virgin naked as her god of bows. 
 May read or hear when blood at highest flows ; 
 Nor more expense of blushes thence arise, 
 Than while the lect'ring matron does advise 
 To guard her virtue, and her honour prize. 
 
 Satire and panegyric, distant be. 
 Yet jointly here they both in one agree. 
 The whole's a sacrifice of salt and fire ; 
 So does the humour of the age require, 
 To chafe the touch, and so foment desire. 
 As doctrine-dangling preachers lull asleep 
 Their unattentive pent-up fold of sheep ; 
 The opiated milk glues up the brain. 
 And th' babes of grace are in their cradles lain ; 
 
( xxiv ) 
 
 While mounted Andrews, bawdy, bold, and loud. 
 
 Like cocks, alarm all the drowsy crowd, 
 
 Whose glittering ears are prick'd as bolt-upright. 
 
 As sailing hairs are hoisted in a fright. 
 
 So does it fare with croaking spawns o' th' press. 
 
 The mould o' th' subject alters the success ; 
 
 What's serious, like sleep, grants writs of ease. 
 
 Satire and ridicule can only please ; 
 
 As if no other animals could gape, 
 
 But the biting badger, or the snick'ring ape. 
 
 Folly by irony's commended here, 
 Sooth'd, that her weakness may the more appear. 
 Thus fools, who trick'd, in red and yellow shine. 
 Are made believe that they are wondrous fine, 
 When all's a plot t' expose them by design. 
 The largesses of Folly here are strown. 
 Like pebbles, not to pick, but trample on. 
 Thus Spartans laid their soaking slaves before 
 The boys, to justle, kick, and tumble o'er : 
 Not that the dry-lipp'd youngsters might combine 
 To taste and know the mystery of wine. 
 But wonder thus at men transform'd to swine ; 
 And th' power of such enchantment to escape, 
 Timely renounce the devil of the grape. 
 
 So here, 
 Though Folly speaker be, and argument, 
 Wit guides the tongue, wisdom's the lecture meant. 
 
ERAS M U S's 
 Praise of FOLLY. 
 
 An oration, of feigned tnatter, spoken by Folly 
 in her own person. 
 
 EOW slightly soever I am esteemed 
 in the common vogue of the world, 
 (for I well know how disingenuously 
 Folly is decried , even by those who 
 are themselves 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 
 convincing argument, in that as soon as I 
 appeared to speak before this numerous as- 
 sembly all their countenances were gilded over 
 with a lively sparkling pleasantness : you soon 
 
2 Erasmus's praise of Foi.i-v, 
 
 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 hermit's 
 cell. But as it is usual, that as soon as the 
 sun peeps from her eastern bed, and draws 
 back the curtains of the darksome night ; or 
 as when, after a hard winter, the restorative 
 spring breathes a more 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 
 colours. That therefore which expert orators 
 can scarce effect by all their little artifice of 
 eloquence, to wit, a raising the attentions of 
 their auditors to a composedness of thought, 
 this a bare look from me has commanded. The 
 reason why I appear in 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 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 3 
 
 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 
 humour 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 scanda- 
 lous 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 panegyrick, yet not 
 upon Hercules, Solon, or any other grandee, but 
 on myself, that is, upon Folly. 
 
 And here I value not their censure that pre- 
 tend it is foppish and affected for any person 
 to praise himself: yet let it be as silly as they 
 please, if they will but allow it needful : and 
 indeed what is more befitting than that Folly 
 should be the 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 more than the same with what is done 
 
 B 2 
 
4 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 by several seemingly 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 cha- 
 racter, 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 labour- 
 ing to change the black-a- moor's hue, and the 
 drawing on a pigmy's frock over the shoulders 
 of a giant. 
 
 Lastly, I verify the old observation, that 
 allows him a right of praising himself, who has 
 nobody else to do it for him : for really, I cannot 
 but admire at that ingratitude, shall I term it, or 
 blockishness of mankind, who when they all 
 willingly pay to me their utmost devoir, and 
 freely acknowledge their respective obligations; 
 that notwithstanding this, there should have 
 been none so grateful or complaisant as to 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 5 
 
 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 unpre- 
 meditated, but so much the more natural dis- 
 course. My venting it ex tempore, I would not 
 have you think proceeds from any principles 
 of vain glory by which ordinary orators square 
 their attempts, who (as it is easy to observe) 
 when they are delivered of a speech that has 
 been thirty years a conceiving, nay, perhaps at 
 last, none of their own, yet they will swear they 
 wrote it in a great hurry, and upon very short 
 warning : whereas the reason of my not being 
 provided beforehand is only because it was 
 always my humour constantly to speak that 
 which lies uppermost. Next, let no one be so 
 fond as to imagine, that I should so far stint my 
 invention to the method of other pleaders, as 
 first to define, and then divide my subject, i.e., 
 myself. For it is equally hazardous to attempt 
 the crowding her within the narrow limits of a 
 
6 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 defi- 
 nition for a faint resemblance, and mere shadow 
 of me, while appearing here personally, you may 
 view me at a more certain light ? And if your 
 eye-sight fail not, you may at first blush discern 
 me to be her whom the Greeks term Mwpia, 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 colours, 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 
 cannot be so much as counterfeited, even by 
 those who challenge the name of wits, yet indeed 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 7 
 
 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 indifferently for 
 either side, and deem it a very doughty exploit 
 if they can but interlard a Latin sentence with 
 some Greek word, which for seeming garnish 
 they crowd in at a venture ; and rather than be 
 at a stand for some cramp words, they will fur- 
 nish up a long scroll of old obsolete terms out 
 of some musty author, and foist them in, to 
 amuse the reader with, that those who under- 
 
8 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 stand them may be tickled with the happiness 
 of being acquainted 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 perhaps they do not 
 understand one word. And so much for this ; 
 pardon the digression, now I return. 
 
 Of my name I have informed you, Sirs ; what 
 additional epithet to give you I know not, except 
 you will be content with that of most foolish ; 
 for under what more proper appellation can the 
 goddess Folly greet her devotees ? But since 
 there are few acquainted with my family and 
 original, I will now give you some account of my 
 extraction. 
 
 First then, my father was neither the chaos, , 
 nor hell, nor Saturn, nor Jupiter, nor any of 
 those old, worn out, grandsire gods, but Plutus, 
 the very same that, maugre Homer, Hesiod, nay, 
 in spite of Jove himself, was the primary father 
 

Erasmus's praise of Folly. 9 
 
 of the universe ; at whose alone beck, for all 
 ages, religion and civil policy, have been suc- 
 cessively undermined and re-established ; by 
 whose powerful influence war, peace, empire, 
 debates, justice, magistracy, marriage, leagues, 
 compacts, laws, arts, (I have almost run myself 
 out of breath, but) in a word, all affairs of church 
 and state, and business of private concern, are 
 severally ordered and administered ; without 
 whose assistance all the Poets' gang of deities, 
 nay, I may be so bold as to say the very major- 
 domos of heaven, would either dwindle into 
 nothing, or at least be confined to their respec- 
 tive homes without any ceremonies of devotional 
 address : whoever he combats with as an enemy, 
 nothing can be armour-proof against his assaults ; 
 and whosoever he sides with as a friend, may 
 grapple at even hand with Jove, and all his bolts. 
 Of such a father I may well brag ; and he begot 
 me, not of his brain, as Jupiter did the hag Pallas, 
 but of a pretty young nymph, famed for wit no less 
 than beauty : 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. 
 
lo Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 But to prevent your mistaking me, I would have 
 you understand that my father was not that 
 Plutus in Aristophanes, old, dry, withered, sap« 
 less and blind; but the same in his younger and 
 brisker days, and when his veins were more im- 
 pregnated, 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 in- 
 gredient 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 smell- 
 ing, rue, all-heal, bugloss, marjoram, herb of life, 
 roses, violets, hyacinth, and such like fragrances! 
 as perfume the gardens of Adonis. And being 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. i i 
 
 born amongst these delights, I did not, Hke other 
 infants, come crying into the world, but perked 
 up, and laughed immediately in my mother's 
 face. And there is no reason I should envy 
 Jove for having a she-goat to his nurse, since 
 I was more creditably suckled by two jolly 
 nymphs ; the name of the first drunkenness, one 
 of Bacchus's offspring, the other ignorance, the 
 daughter of Pan ; both which you may here 
 behold among several others of my train and 
 attendants, whose particular names, if you would 
 fain know, I will give you in short. This, who 
 goes with a mincing gait, and holds up her head 
 so high, is Self-Love. She that looks so spruce, 
 and makes such a noise and bustle, is Flattery. 
 That other, which sits hum-drum, as if she were 
 half asleep, is called Forgetfulness. She that 
 leans on her elbow, and sometimes yawningly 
 stretches out her arms, is Laziness. This, that 
 wears a plighted garland of flowers, and smells 
 so perfumed, is Pleasure. The other, which ap- 
 pears in so smooth a skin, and pampered-up 
 flesh, is Sensuality. She that stares so wildly, 
 and rolls about her eyes, is Madness. As to 
 those two gods whom you see playing among 
 
1 2 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 edu- 
 cation, and my attendance ; that I may not be 
 taxed as presumptuous in borrowing the title of 
 a goddess, I come now in the next place to ac- 
 quaint you what obliging favours I everywhere 
 bestow, and how largely my jurisdiction extends: 
 for if, as one has ingenuously noted, to be a god 
 is no other than to be a benefactor to mankind ; 
 and if they have been thought deservedly deified 
 who have invented the use of wine, corn, or any 
 other convenience for the well-being of mortals, 
 why may not I justly bear the van among the 
 whole troop of gods, who in all, and toward all, 
 exert an unparalleled bounty and beneficence ? 
 
 For instance, in the first place, what can be 
 more dear and precious than' life itself ? and yet 
 for this are none beholden, save to me alone. 
 For it is neither the spear of throughly-begotten 
 Pallas, nor the buckler of cloud-gathering Jove, 
 that multiplies and propagates mankind : but 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 13 
 
 that prime father of the universe, who at a dis- 
 pleasing nod makes heaven itself to tremble, he 
 (I say) must lay aside his frightful ensigns of 
 majesty, and put aWay that grim aspect where- 
 with he makes the other gods to quake, and, 
 stage player-like, must lay aside his usual cha- 
 racter, 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 
 Stoicks ; 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 dic- 
 tator of wisdom shall be glad to take Folly for 
 his diversion, if ever he would arrive to the honour 
 of a father. And why should I not tell my story 
 out ? To proceed then : is it the head, the face, 
 the breasts, the hands, the ears, or other more 
 comely parts, that serve for instruments of gene- 
 ration } I trow not, but it is that member of our 
 
14 .Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 body which is so odd and uncouth as can scarce 
 be mentioned without a smile. This part, I say, 
 is that fountain of life, from which originally 
 spring all things in a truer sense than from the 
 elemental seminary. Add to this, what man 
 would be so silly as to run his head into the col- 
 lar of a matrimonial noose, if (as wise men are 
 wont to do) he had before-hand duly considered 
 the inconveniences of a wedded life ? Or indeed 
 what woman would open her arms to receive the 
 embraces of a husband, if she did but forecast 
 the pangs of child-birth, and the plague of being 
 a nurse ? Since then you owe your birth to the 
 bride-bed, and (what was preparatory to that) the 
 solemnizing of marriage to my waiting-woman 
 Madness, you cannot but acknowledge how 
 much you are indebted to me. Beside, those 
 who had once dearly bought the experience of 
 their folly, would never re-engage themselves in 
 the same entanglement by a second match, if it 
 were not occasioned by the forgetfulness of past 
 dangers. And Venus herself (whatever Lucretius 
 pretends to the contrary), cannot deny, but that 
 without my assistance, her procreative power 
 would prove weak and ineffectual. It was from 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 15 
 
 my sportive and tickling recreation that pro- 
 ceeded 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 have made it 
 appear that I am the source and original of all 
 life, except I likewise shew that all the benefits 
 of life are equally at my disposal. And what 
 are such ? Why, can any one be said properly to 
 live to whom pleasure is denied ? You will give 
 me your assent ; for there is none I know among 
 you so wise shall I say, or so silly, as to be of a 
 contrary opinion. The Stoics indeed contemn, 
 and pretend to banish pleasure ; but this is only 
 a dissembling trick, and a putting the vulgar out 
 of conceit with it, that they may more quietly 
 engross it to themselves : but I dare them now 
 to confess what one stage of life is not melan- 
 choly, dull, tiresome, tedious, and uneasy, unless 
 we spice it with pleasure, that hautgoust of Folly. 
 Of the truth whereof the never enough to be 
 commended Sophocles is sufficient authority, 
 
1 6 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 who gives me the highest character in that sen- 
 tence 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 ingredients of 
 innocence and Folly, of which nature out of 
 providence did purposely compound and blend 
 their tender infancy, that by a frank return 
 of pleasure they might make some sort of 
 amends for their parents' trouble, and give in 
 caution as it were for the discharge of a future 
 education ; the next advance from childhood is 
 youth, and how favourably is this dealt with ; 
 how kind, courteous, and respectful are all 
 to it ? and how ready to become serviceable 
 upon all occasions ? And whence reaps it 
 this happiness ? Whence indeed, but from 
 me only, by whose procurement it is furnished 
 with Httle of wisdom, and so with the less of 
 disquiet ? And when once lads begin to grow 
 
109 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. i 7 
 
 up, and attempt to write man, their prettlness 
 does then soon decay, their briskness flags, their 
 humours stagnate, their jolHty 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 suffer- 
 ings. I again intervene, and lend a helping-hand, 
 assisting them at a dead lift, in the same method 
 the poets feign their gods to succour dying men, 
 by transforming them into new creatures, which 
 I do by bringing them back, after they have one 
 foot in the grave, to their infancy again ; so as 
 there is a great deal of truth couched in that old 
 proverb. Once an old man, and twice a child. Now 
 if any one be curious to understand what course 
 • I tcike 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 Lethe in hell but a small stream of 
 it), and when they have there filled their bellies 
 full, and washed down care, by the virtue and 
 operation whereof they become young again. 
 
1 8 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 somewhat 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 any thing to do with such an old blade, 
 as, after the wear and harrowing of so many years 
 should yet continue of as clear a head and sound 
 a judgment as he had at any time been in his 
 middle-age ; and therefore it is great kindness 
 of me that old men grow fools, since it is hereby 
 only that they are freed from such vexations as 
 would torment them if they were more wise : 
 they can drink briskly, bear up stoutly, and 
 lightly pass over such infirmities, as a far stronger 
 constitution could scarce master. Sometime, 
 with the old fellow in Plautus, they are 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 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly, 19 
 
 sensible of their hard condition ; but by my 
 assistance, they carry off all well, and to their 
 respective friends approve themselves good, 
 sociable, jolly companions. Thus Homer makes 
 aged Nestor famed for a smooth oily-tongued 
 orator, while the delivery of Achilles was but 
 rough, harsh, and hesitant ; and the same poet 
 elsewhere tells us of old men that sate on the 
 walls, and spake with a great deal of flourish and 
 elegance. And in this point indeed they sur- 
 pass and outgo children, who are pretty forward 
 in a 'softly, innocent prattle, but otherwise are 
 too much tongue-tied, and want the other's most 
 acceptable embellishment of a perpetual talka- 
 tiveness. Add to this, that old men love to 
 be playing with children, and children delight as 
 much in them, to verify the proverb, that Birds 
 of a feather flock together. And indeed what 
 difference can be discerned between them, but 
 that the one is more furrowed with wrinkles, and 
 has seen a little more of the world than the 
 other ? For otherwise their whitish hair, their 
 want of teeth, their smallness of stature, their 
 milk diet, their bald crowns, their prattling, their 
 playing, their short memory, their heedlessness, 
 
20 Erasmus's praise of Follv. 
 
 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 
 somewhat else argues the destruction of what 
 they were before ; whereas I can restore the same 
 numerical man to his pristine state of youth, 
 health and strength ; yea, what is more, if men 
 would but so far consult their own interest, as 
 to discard all thoughts of wisdom, and entirely 
 resign themselves to my guidance and conduct, 
 old age should be a paradox, and each man's 
 years a perpetual spring. For look how your 
 hard plodding students, by a close sedentary con- 
 finement to their books, grow mopish, pale, and 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 2 1 
 
 meagre, as if, by a continual wrack of brains, 
 and torture of invention, their veins were pumped 
 dry, and their whole body squeezed sapless ; 
 whereas my followers are smooth, plump,* and 
 bucksome, and altogether as lusty as so many 
 bacon-hogs, or sucking calves ; never in their 
 career of pleasure to be arrested with old age, if 
 they could but keep themselves untainted from 
 the contagiousness of wisdom, with the leprosy 
 whereof, if at any time they are infected, it is 
 only for 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 antidote against age. And it is a 
 never-failing observation rnade of the people of 
 Brabant, that, contrary to the proverb of Older 
 and wiser, the more ancient they grow, the more 
 fools they are ; and there is not any one country, 
 whose inhabitants enjoy themselves better, and 
 rub through the world with more ease and quiet. 
 To these are nearly related, as well by affinity 
 of customs, as of neighbourhood, my friends the 
 Hollanders: mine I may well call them, for they 
 
2 2 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 stick so close and lovingly to me, that they are 
 styled fools to a proverb, and yet scorn to be 
 ashamed of their name. Well, let fond mortals 
 go now in a needless quest of some Medea, Circe, 
 Venus, or some enchanted fountain, for a resto- 
 rative of age, whereas the accurate performance 
 of this feat lies only within the ability of my art 
 and skill. 
 
 It is I only who have the receipt of making 
 that liquor wherewith Memnon's daughter 
 lengthened out her grandfather's declining days : 
 it is I that am that Venus, who so far restored 
 the languishing Phaon, as to make Sappho fall 
 deeply in love with his beauty. Mine are those 
 herbs, mine those charms, that not only lure back 
 swift time, when past and gone, but what is more 
 to* be admired, clip its wings, and prevent all 
 farther flight. So then, if you will all agxee, to..^ 
 my verdict, that nothing is more desirable than 
 the being young, nor any thing more loathed^, 
 than contemptible old age, you must needs ac- 
 knowledge it as an unrequitable obligation from 
 me, for fencing off the one, and perpetuating^the_ 
 other. 
 
 But why should I confine my discourse' to the 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 23 
 
 narrow subject of mankind only ? View the 
 whole heaven itself, and then tell me what one 
 of that divine tribe would not be mean and 
 despicable, if my name did not lend him some 
 respect and authority. Why is Bacchus always 
 painted as a young man, but only because he is 
 freakish, drunk, and mad; and spending his time 
 in toping, dancing, masking, and revelling, seems 
 to have nothing in the least to do with wisdom ? 
 Nay, so far is he from the affectation of being 
 accounted wise, that he is content, all the rights 
 of devotion which are paid unto him should 
 consist of apishness and drollery. Farther, 
 what scoffs and jeers did not the old comedians 
 throw upon him ? O swinish punch-gut god, say 
 they, that smells rank of the sty he was sowed 
 up in, and so on. But prithee, who in this case, 
 always merry, youthful, soaked in wine, and 
 drowned in pleasure, who, I say, in such a case, 
 would change conditions, either with the lofty 
 menace-looking Jove, the grave, yet timorous 
 Pan, the stately Pallas, or indeed any one other 
 of heaven's landlords ? Why is Cupid feigned as 
 a boy, but only because he is an under-witted 
 whipster, that neither acts nor thinks any thing 
 
24 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 imi- 
 tates me in being always a laughing, if either we 
 believe the poets, or their near kinsmen the 
 painters, the first mentioning, the other drawing 
 her constantly in that posture. Add farther, to 
 what deity did the Romans pay a more cere- 
 monial respect than to Flora, that bawd of ob- 
 scenity ? 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 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 25 
 
 beyond correction : and now in his banishment 
 from heaven he finds but cold entertainment 
 here on earth, nay, is denied all admittance into 
 the court of princes, where notwithstanding my 
 handmaid Flattery finds a most encouraging 
 welcome : but this petulant monitor being thrust 
 out of doors, the gods can now more freely rant 
 and revel, and take their whole swinge of 
 pleasure. Now the beastly Priapus may recreate 
 himself without contradiction in lust and filthi- 
 ness ; now the sly Mercury may, without dis- 
 covery, 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 
 shew his activity, may now dance a frisking jig, 
 and the nymphs be at the same sport naked. 
 The goatish satyrs may make up a merry ball, 
 and Pan, the blind harper may put up his 
 bagpipes, and sing bawdy catches, to which the 
 gods, especially when they are almost drunk, 
 shall give a most profound attention. But why 
 would I any farther rip open and expose the 
 
26 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 nothing 
 happy, nay, nothing tolerable, without my pre- 
 . sence and assistance. And in the first place consi- 
 der how providently nature has took care that in 
 all her works there should be some piquant smack 
 and relish of Folly : fo r since the Stoics defi ne 
 wisdom to be conducted^ by reason, and Jolly 
 nothing else but the being hurried byi passio n, lest 
 our life should otherwise have been too dull -and 
 inactive, that creator, who out of clay fiEst-J;eni- 
 pered and made us up, put into the composition 
 of our humanity more than a pound of passions 
 "to an ounce of reason ; and reason he confined 
 within the narrow cells of the brain, whereas he 
 left passions the whole body to range in. Far- 
 ther, he set up two sturdy champions to stand 
 perpetually on the guard, that reason might make 
 no assault, surprise, nor in-road : anger, which 
 keeps its station in the fortress of the heart; and 
 lust, which like the signs Virgo and Scorpio, 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 27 
 
 rules the belly and secret members.. Against 
 the forces of these two warriors how unable is 
 reason to bear up and withstand, every day's 
 experience does abundantly witness ; while let 
 reason be never so importunate in urging and 
 reinforcing her admonitions to virtue, yet the 
 passions bear all before them, and by the least 
 offer of curb or restraint grow but more impe- 
 rious, 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 harmless and silly, and yet so useful 
 and convenient, as might mollify and make' 
 pliable the stiffness and morose humour of man. 
 
 Now that which made Plato doubt under what 
 genus to rank woman, whether among brutes or 
 rational creatures, was only meant to denote 
 the extreme stupidness and Folly of that sex, 
 
28 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 a sex so unalterably simple, that for any of them 
 to thrust forward, and reach at the name of wise, 
 is but to make themselves the more remarkable 
 fools, such an endeavour, being but a swimming 
 against the stream, nay, the turning the course 
 of nature, the bare attempting whereof is as 
 extravagant as the effecting of it is impossible : 
 for as it is a trite 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 women 
 should take it amiss to be thus charged ; for if 
 they do but rightly consider they will find it is 
 to Folly they are beholden for those endow- 
 ments, wherein they so far surpass and excel 
 man ; as first, for their unparalleled beauty, by 
 the charm whereof they tyrannize over the 
 greatest tyrants ; for what is it but too great a 
 smatch 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 symmetry and comeh'ness ? Beside, what 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 29 
 
 greater or juster aim and ambition have they 
 than to please their husbands ? In order where- 
 'unto they garnish themselves with paint, washes, 
 curls, perfumes, and all other mysteries of orna- 
 ment; vet_after all they, begsia£_accaBtaMg.iQ. 
 them only for their Folly. Wives are always 
 allowed their humouf, 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 
 kittle, and play a hundred little tricks with his 
 bed-fellow when he is disposed to make that 
 use of her that nature designed her for. Well, 
 then, you see whence that greatest pleasure {to 
 which modesty scarce allows a name), springs 
 and proceeds. 
 
 But now some blood-chilled old men, that are 
 more for wine than wenching, will pretend, that 
 in their opinion the greatest happiness consists 
 in feasting and drinking. Grant it be so ; yet 
 certainly in the most luxurious entertainments it 
 is Folly must give the sauce and relish to the 
 daintiest cates and delicacies ; so that if there be 
 no one of the guests naturally fool enough to be 
 played upon by the rest, they must procure some 
 
30 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 comical buffoon, that by his jokes, and flouts, 
 and blunders shall make the whole company 
 split themselves with laughing : for to what pur- 
 pose were it to be stuffed and crammed with so 
 many dainty bits, savoury dishes, and toothsome 
 rarities, if after all this epicurism of the belly, the 
 eyes, the ears, and the whole mind of man, were 
 not as well foistred and relieved with laughing, 
 jesting, and such like divertisements, which like 
 second courses serve for the promoting of di- 
 gestion ? And as to all those shooing horns of 
 drunkenness, the keeping every one his man, 
 the throwing hey-jinks, the filling of bumpers, 
 the drinking two in a hand, the beginning of mis- 
 tress' 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 welcome it finds. And indeed to jog 
 sleepingly through the world, in a dumpish 
 melancholy posture cannot properly be said to 
 
Erasuvs's praise o/ Foi.iA'. 31 
 
 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 could 
 not long subsist without a natural combination ; 
 so pleasant that it affords as warm an influence 
 as the sun itself ; so honest, (if honesty in this 
 case deserve any consideration), that the very 
 philosophers have not stuck to place this as one 
 among the rest of their different sentiments of 
 the chiefest good. But what if I make it appear 
 that I also am the main spring and original of 
 this 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 goes) As plain as the 
 nose on your face. Well then, to scratch and 
 curry one another, to wink at a friend's faults ; 
 nay, to cry up some failings for virtuous and 
 commendable, is not this the next door to the 
 
32 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 being a fool ? When one looking stedfastly in 
 his mistress's face, admires a mole as much as 
 a beauty spot ; when another swears his lady's 
 stinking breath is a most redolent perfume ; and 
 at another time the fond parent hugs the squint- 
 eyed child, and pretends it is rather a becoming 
 glance and winning aspect than any blemish of 
 the eye-sight, what is all this but the very height 
 of Folly ? Folly (I say) that both makes friends 
 and keeps them so. I speak of mortal men 
 only, among whom there are none but have 
 some small faults ; he is most happy that has 
 ■fewest. If we pass to the gods, we shall find that 
 they have so much of wisdom, as they have very 
 little of friendship ; nay, nothing of that which is 
 true and hearty. The reason why men make a 
 greater improvement in this virtue, is only be- 
 cause they are more credulous and easy natured ; 
 for friends must be of the same humour and in- 
 clinations too, or else the league of amity, though 
 made with never so many protestations, will be 
 soon broke. ^ Thus grave an d morose men 
 seldom prove fast friends ; they are too captious 
 and censorious, and will not bear with one 
 another's infirmities ; they are as eagle sighted as 
 

 •t^ffeiia*^' 
 
E Rasmus's praise of Folly. 3 3 
 
 may be in the espial of others' faults, while they 
 wink upon themselves, and never mind the beam 
 in their own eyesT] In short, man being by 
 nature so prone to frailties, so humoursome 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 'Er^j^eia, and we may construe good nature, 
 which is but another word for Folly. And 
 what ? Is not Cupid, that first father of all 
 relation, is not he stark blind, that as he cannot 
 himself distinguish of colours, so he would make 
 us as mope-eyed in judging falsely of all love 
 concerns, and wheedle us into a thinking that 
 we are always in the right ? Thus every Jack 
 sticks to his own Jill ; every tinker esteems his 
 own trull ; and the hob-nailed suiter 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, 
 
 D 
 
34 E Rasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 which is but the highest advance and improve- 
 ment of friendship in the closest bond of union. 
 Good God ! What frequent divorces, or worse 
 mischief, would oft sadly happen, except man 
 and wife, were so discreet as to pass over light 
 occasions of quarrel with laughing, jesting, dis- 
 sembling, and such like playing the fool ? ' Nay, 
 how few matches would go forward, if the hasty 
 lover did but first know how many little tricks 
 of lust and wantonness (and perhaps more gross 
 failings) his coy and seemingly bashful mistress 
 had oft before been guilty of ? And how fewer 
 marriages, when consummated, would continue 
 happy, if the husband were not either sottishly 
 insensible of, or did not purposely wink at and 
 pass over the lightness and 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 sing at the back door, the un- 
 thinking 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 
 
Erasmvs's praise o/ Folly. 35 
 
 all is well. And indeed it is much better 
 patiently to be such a hen-pecked frigot, than 
 always to be wracked and tortured with the 
 grating surmises of suspicion and jealousy. In 
 fine, there is no one society, no one relation 
 men stand in, would be comfortable, or indeed 
 tolerable, without my assistance; there could be 
 no right understanding betwixt prince and 
 people, lord and servant, tutor and pupil, friend 
 and friend, man and wife, buyer and seller, or 
 any persons however otherwise related, if they 
 did not cowardly put up small abuses, sneakingly 
 cringe and submit, or after all fawningly scratch 
 and flatter each other. This you will say is much, 
 but you shall yet hear what is more ; tell me 
 then, can any one love another that first hates 
 himself ? Is it likely any one should agree with 
 a friend that is first fallen out with his own 
 judgment ? Or is it probable he should be any 
 way pleasing to another, who is a perpetual 
 plague and trouble to himself ? This is such a 
 paradox that none can be so mad as to maintain. 
 Well, but if I am excluded and barred out, every 
 man would be so far from being able to bear 
 with others, that he would be burthensome to 
 
36 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 peevishness of disposition, as to 
 nauseate and dislike whatever is their own, and 
 much admire what belongs to other persons, so 
 as they cannot in any wise enjoy what their birth 
 or fortunes have bestowed upon them : for what 
 grace is there in the greatest .b£auty>.if. it hp 
 always clouded with frowns and sulliness ? Or 
 what vigour Jn youth, if it be harassed jjoBLa 
 pettish, dogged, waspish, ill. humour? None, 
 sure. 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 supported 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 
 will be no relish to any of our words or actions. 
 Take away this one property of a fool, and the 
 orator shall become as dumb and silent as the 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 37 
 
 pulpit he stands in ; the musician shall hang up 
 his untouched instruments on the wall ; the com- 
 pletest actors shall be hissed off the stage ; the 
 poet shall be burlesqued with his own doggrel 
 rhymes ; the painter shall himself vanish into an 
 imaginary landscape ; and the physician shall 
 want food more than his patients do physic. In 
 short, without self-love, instead of beautiful, you 
 shall think yourself an old beldam of fourscore ; 
 instead of youthful, you shall seem just dropping 
 into the grave ; instead of eloquent, a mere 
 stammerer ; and in lieu of gentle and complai- 
 sant, you shall appear like a downright country 
 clown; it being so necessary that every one 
 should think well of ,hiRiS£lf before he can expect 
 the good opinion of others. Finally, when it is 
 the main and essential part of happiness to 
 desire to be no other than what we already 
 are; this expedient is again wholly owing to 
 self-love, which so flushes men with a good 
 conceit of their own, that no one repents of his 
 shape, of his wit, of his education, or of his 
 country ; so as the dirty half-drowned Hollander 
 would not remove into the pleasant plains of 
 Italy, the rude Thracian would not change his 
 
38 Erasmus's praise of Folly, 
 
 boggy soil for the best seat in Athens, nor the 
 brutish Scythian quit his thorny deserts to 
 become an inhabitant of the Fortunate Islands. 
 And oh the incomparable contrivance of nature, 
 who has ordered all things in so even a method 
 that wherever she has been less bountiful in her 
 gifts, there she makes it up with a larger dose 
 of self-love, which supplies the former defects, 
 and makes all even. To enlarge farther, I may 
 well presume to aver, that there are no con- 
 siderable exploits performed, no useful arts in- 
 vented, 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 
 when they come to an engagement, what service 
 can be done by such pale-faced students, as by 
 drudging at the oars of wisdom, have spent all 
 their strength and activity ? No, the only use is 
 of blunt sturdy fellows that have little of wit, and 
 so the more of resolution : except you would 
 make a soldier of such another Demosthenes as 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 39 
 
 threw down his arms when he came within sisrht 
 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 true, 
 but not such counsel as shall be prescribed 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 manage- 
 ment of such concerns, Socrates (by the oracle 
 adjudged to be the wisest of mortals) is a notable 
 example ; who when he appeared in the attempt 
 of some public performance before the peoplp, 
 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 
 accepting the oracle's compliment ; as also for 
 advising that no philosophers should have any 
 hand in the government of the commonwealth ; 
 he should have likewise at the same time, added, 
 that they should be banished all human society. 
 
40 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 excessiveness of wisdom ? whereby, 
 while he was searching into the nature of clouds, 
 while he was plodding and contemplating 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 in- 
 sects, 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 dashed 
 out of countenance by an illiterate rabble, as to 
 demur, and hawk, and hesitate, before he could 
 get to the end of one short sentence. Theo- 
 phrastus was such another coward, who begin- 
 ning 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 eloquence. 
 
-/y 
 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 41 
 
 was wont to begin his speeches with a low, qui- 
 vering voice, just like a school-boy, afraid of not 
 saying his lesson perfect enough to escape whip- 
 ping : and yet Fabius commends this property 
 of Tully as an argument 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 a 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 deli- 
 very of bare words ? 
 
 Now then let Plato's fine sentence be cried' 
 up, that " happy are those commonwealths 
 where either philosophers are elected kings, or 
 kings turn philosophers." Alas, this is so far 
 from bein^ true, that if we consult all historians 
 for an account of past ages, we shall find no 
 prmces more weak, nor any people more slavish 
 and wretched, than where the administrations 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 
 
42 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 senate by his tedious harangues of defending 
 himself, and accusing others ; the younger was 
 an unhappy occasion of the loss of the peoples' 
 liberty, while by improper 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 Mar- 
 cus Antoninus, whom we may allow to have 
 been a good emperor, yet the less such for his 
 being a philosopher ; and certainly he did not 
 do half that kindness to his empire by his own 
 prudent management of affairs, as he did mis- 
 chief by leaving such a degenerate successor as 
 his son Commodus proved to be; but it is a 
 common observation, that A_wise father has 
 many times a foolish son, nature so contriving it, 
 lest the taint of wisdom, like hereditary -distem- 
 pers, should otherwise descend 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 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 43 
 
 are so awkward and unhandy in the ordering of 
 public affairs, if they were not so bad, or worse 
 in the management of their ordinary and domes- 
 tic concerns ; but alas, here they are much to 
 seek : for place a formal wise man at a feast, 
 and he shall, either by his morose silence put 
 the whole table out of humour, or by his frivo- 
 lous 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 performance, 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 cannot unstarch his gravity, 
 nor 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 behaves 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 nothing how the world goes, and is 
 wholly unacquainted with the humour of the 
 
44 Erasmus's praise of Folly, 
 
 vulgar, who cannot but hate a person so dis- 
 agreeing 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 pragmati- 
 cally 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 savage, unite into civil societies, 
 but only flattery, one of my chief est 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 mor- 
 rice after him. What was it that quieted and 
 appeased the Roman people, when they brake 
 out into a riot for the redress of grievances ? 
 Was it any sinewy starched oration ? No, alas, 
 it was only a silly, ridiculous story, told by 
 Menenius Agrippa, how the other members of 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 45 
 
 the body quarrelled with the belly, resolving no 
 longer to continue her drudging caterers, till 
 by the penance they thought thus in revenge 
 to impose, they soon found their own strength 
 so far diminished, that paying the cost of expe- 
 riencing a mistake, they willingly returned to 
 their respective duties. Thus when the rabble 
 of Athens murmured at the exaction of the ma- 
 gistrates, 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 
 offers his service to drive them away ; no, says 
 the fox, if these which are almost glutted be 
 frighted off", there will come a new hungry set 
 that will be ten times more greedy and devour- 
 ing : the moral of this he meant applicable to 
 the people,, who if they had such magistrates 
 removed as they complained of for extortion, 
 yet their successors would certainly be worse. •' 
 With what highest advances of policy could 
 Sertorius have ' kept the Barbarians so well in 
 awe, as by a white hart, which he pretended was 
 presented to him by Diana, and brought him 
 
46 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 intelligence of all his enemies' designs ? What 
 was Lycurgus his grand argument for demon- 
 strating the force of education, but only the 
 bringing out two whelps of the same bitch, 
 differently brought up, and placing before them a 
 dish, and a live hare ; the one, that had been bred 
 to hunting, ran after the game ; while the other, 
 whose kennel had been a kitchen, presently fell a 
 licking the platter. Thus the before-mentioned 
 Sertorius made his soldiers sensible that wit and 
 contrivance would do more than bare strength, 
 by setting a couple of men to the plucking off 
 two horses' tails ; the first pulling at all in one 
 handful, tugged in vain ; while the other, though 
 much the weaker, snatching off one by one, 
 soon performed his appointed task. 
 
 Instances of like nature are Minos and king 
 Numa, 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 
 goddess -^geria assistant to him in all debates 
 and transactions. And indeed it is by such 
 wheedles that the common people are best 
 gulled and imposed upon. 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 47 
 
 For farther, what city would ever submit to 
 the rigorous laws of Plato, to the severe injunc- 
 tions 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 pass to another head, what was it made 
 the Decii so forward to offer themselves up as a 
 sacrifice for an atonement to the angry gods, to 
 rescue and stipulate for their indebted country ? 
 What made Curtius, on a like occasion, so despe- 
 rately to throw away his life, but only vain- 
 glory, that is condemned, and unanimously voted 
 for a main branch of Folly by all wise men ? 
 What is more unreasonable and foppish (say 
 they) than for any man, out of ambition to some 
 office, to bow, to scrape 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 brass, and put up in the 
 market place for a monument of their popu- 
 larity ? Add to this, the affectation of new titles 
 
48 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 and distinctive badges of honour ; nay, the very 
 deifying of such as were the most bloody tyrants. 
 These are so extremely ridiculous, that there is 
 need of 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 labo- 
 rious writers. 
 
 It is Folly that, in a several dress, governs 
 cities, appoints magistrates, and supports judica- 
 tures ; 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 bub- 
 bling 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 title to 
 valour and industry, what if I challenge an equal 
 share of wisdoip ? How ! this (you will say) is 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 49 
 
 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 under- 
 taking 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 bluntly on, and 
 have done the business, while the other is think- 
 ing of it. For the two greatest lets and impe- 
 diments to the issue of any performance are 
 rnodesty, 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 
 
50 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 J anus's, carry a double face, or rather bear 
 a false aspect, mostjiiinga.being_really- in them- 
 selves far different, fram whatthey are„in._app£ar- 
 ance to others^ so as that which at first blush 
 proves alive, is in truth dead ; and that again 
 which appears as dead, at a nearer view proves 
 to be alive : beautiful seems ugly, wealthy poor,, 
 scandalous is thought creditable, prosperous 
 passes for unlucky, friendly for what is most 
 opposite, and innocent for what is hurtful and 
 pernicious. In short, if we change the tables, 
 all things are found placed in a quite different 
 posture from what just before they appeared 
 to 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 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 5 1 
 
 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 farther to expatiate, I could 
 enlarge upon several instances of like nature, but 
 this one may at present suffice. 
 
 Well, but what is the meaning (will some say) 
 of all this ? Why, observe the application. If 
 any one in a play-house be so impertinent and 
 rude as to rifle the actors of their borrowed 
 clothes, make them lay down the character 
 assumed, and force them to return to their naked 
 selves, would not such a one wholly discompose 
 and spoil the entertainment ? And would he 
 not deserve to be hissed and thrown stones at 
 till the pragmatical fool could learn better man- 
 ners .'' 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 
 
52, Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 god, is in truth 
 worse than a brute, being made captive to the 
 tyranny of passion ; that the other, who bears the 
 character of a king, is indeed the most slavish of 
 serving-men, in being subject to the mastership 
 of lust and sensuality ; that a third, who vaunts so 
 much of his pedigree, is no better than a bastard 
 for degenerating from virtue, which ought to be 
 of greatest consideration in heraldry, and so shall 
 go on in exposing all the rest ; would not any one 
 think such a person quite frantic, and ripe for 
 bedlam ? For as nothing is more silly than 
 preposterous wisdom, so is there nothing more 
 
Erasmus's praise ^/ "Folly. 6^^ 
 
 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 bu.t_a, man, and 
 therefore he should not pitch his soaring tlipvights 
 beyond the level of mortality, but imp the wings 
 of his towering ambition, and obligingly submit 
 and condescend to the weakness of others, it 
 being many times a piece of complaisance to go 
 out of the road for company's sake. No (say 
 you), this is a grand piece of Folly : true, but 
 yet all our living is no more than such kind of 
 fooling : which though it may seem harsh to 
 assert, yet it is not so strange as true. 
 
 For the better making it out it might perhaps 
 be requisite to invoke the aid of the muses, to 
 whom the poets devoutly apply themselves upon 
 far more slender occasions. Come then and 
 assist, ye Heliconian lasses, while I attempt to 
 prove that there is no method for an arrival at 
 wisdom, and consequently no track to the goal 
 
54 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 of happinesSj without .the mstructions and direc- 
 tions of Folly. 
 
 And here, in the first place it has been already 
 acknowledged, that all the passions are listed 
 under my regiment, since this is resolved to be the 
 only distinction betwixt a wise man and a fool, 
 that this latter is governed by passion, the other 
 guided by reason : and therefore the Stoics look 
 upon passions no other than as the infection and 
 malady of the soul that disorders the constitution 
 of the whole man, and by putting the spirits into 
 a feverish ferment many times occasion some 
 mortal distemper. And yet these, however 
 decried, are not only our tutors to instruct us 
 towards^ the attainment of wisdom, but even 
 bolden us likewise, and spur us on to a quicker 
 dispatch of all our undertakings. This, I sup- 
 pose, will be stomached by the stoleal Seneca, 
 who pretends that the only emblem of w;^i sdonL is 
 the man without passion ; whereas the supposing 
 any person to be so, is perfectly to unman^m, 
 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 alt ogethe r 
 
J'.Kf. J.- 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 55 
 
 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 con- 
 tingencies 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 him- 
 self ? that loves no man, nor is beloved of any ? 
 that has the impudence to tax even divine pro- 
 vidence of ill contrivance, and proudly grudges, 
 nay, tramples under foot all other men's reputa- 
 tion ; 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 
 
56 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 be a more acceptable man, who would be frolic- 
 some with his wife, free with his friends, jovial at 
 a feast, pliable in converse, and obliging to all 
 company. But I am tired out with this part of my 
 subject, and so must pass to some other topics. 
 
 And now were any one placed on that tower, 
 from whence Jove is fancied by the poets to sur- 
 vey the world, he would all around discern how 
 many grievances and calamities our whole life is 
 on every side encompassed with : how unclean 
 our birth, how troublesome our tendance in the 
 cradle, how liable our childhood is to a thousand 
 misfortuneSj 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,-liow 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 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 57 
 
 be as puzzling arithmetic as the numbering of 
 the sands. 
 
 How mankind became environed with such 
 hard circumstances, or what deity imposed these 
 plagues, as a penance on rebellious mortals, I am 
 not now at leisure to enquire : but whoever seri- 
 ously takes them into consideration must needs 
 commend the valour of the Milesian virgins, who 
 voluntarily killed, themselves to get rid of a trou- 
 blesome world : and how many wise men have 
 taken the same course of becoming their own 
 executioners ; among whom, not to mention 
 Diogenes, Xenocrates, Cato, Cassius, Brutus, and 
 other heroes, the self-denying Chiron is never 
 enough to be commended ; who, when he was 
 offered by Apollo the privilege of being exempted 
 from death, and living on to the world's end, he 
 refused the enticing proposal, as deservedly 
 thinking it a punishment rather than a reward. 
 
 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 
 
58 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 inadvertence ; by the oblivion of whatever would 
 be grating to remember, and the hopes of what- 
 ever may be grateful to expect, together palliat- 
 ing 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 won- 
 derful 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 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 59 
 
 deeply in love with a young girl, and accordingly 
 court her with as much of gaiety and briskness 
 as the liveliest spark in the whole town : and we 
 cannot but know, that for an old man to marry 
 a young wife without a portion, to be a cooler to 
 other men's lust, is grown so common, that it is 
 become the a-la-mode of the times. And what is 
 yet more comical, you shall have some wrinkled 
 old women, whose very looks are a sufficient 
 antidote to lechery, that shall be canting out, 
 Ah, life is a sweet thing, and so run a cater- 
 wauling, and 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-glass, go naked- 
 necked, bare-breasted, be tickled at a smutty jest, 
 dance among the young girls, write love-letters, 
 and do all the other little knacks of 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 
 
6o Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 this one query, whether if folly or hanging w-ere 
 left to their choice, they had not much xather 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, 
 slandcTj calumny, and^disgrace, are no other way 
 injurious than as they are interpreted ; nor other- 
 wise evil, than as they -are-thought, to be so: what 
 harm is it then ji" all persons-derideand scoff you, 
 if you bear but up in your own thoughts, and be 
 yourself thoroughly conceitedjof your -deserts ? 
 Andprithee, why should it be thought any scandal 
 to be a fool, since the being so is one part of our 
 nature and essence ; and as so, our not being wise 
 can no more reasonably be imputed as a fault, 
 than it would be proper to laugh at a man because 
 he cannot fly in the air like birds and fowls ; be- 
 cause he goes not on all four as beasts of the field ; 
 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. 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 6i 
 
 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. 
 
 Ay, but (say our patrons of wisdom) the know- 
 ledge of arts and sciences is purposely attainable 
 by men, that the defect of natural parts may be 
 supplied by the help of acquired : as if it were 
 probable that nature, which had been so exact 
 and curious in the mechanism of flowers, herbs, 
 and flies, should have bungled most in her mas- 
 terpiece, 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 that end they 
 were first designed for, which was the improve- 
 ment of memory, as Plato in his Phaedrus does 
 wittily observe. 
 
 In the firet golden .age- of the world there was 
 no need of these perplexities ; there was then njOL 
 
, 62 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 other sort of learning but what, was naturally col- 
 - Jected from every man's xommojj . sens^impro ved 
 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 cu- 
 riosity ; 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 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. 
 
 Thus was ignorance, in— the-4afanr y of the 
 world, as much the parMitjofLhappiness as it 
 has been since of devotion : but as soon as the 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 63 
 
 golden age began by degrees to degenerate into 
 more drossy metals, then were arts likewise 
 invented ; yet at first but few in number, and 
 those rarely understood, till in farther process of 
 time the superstition of the Chaldeans, and the 
 curiosity of the Grecians, spawned so many sub- 
 tleties, that now it is scarce the work of an age 
 to be thoroughly acquainted with all the cri- 
 ticisms 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 na- 
 turalists 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 incorpo- 
 rated compound of craft and imposture. 
 
 Next to the physician comes (he, who per- 
 haps will commence a suit with me for not being 
 placed before him, I mean) the lawyer, who is 
 
64 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 so silly as to be igjioramus to a proverb, and yet 
 by such are all difficulties resolved, all controver- 
 sies 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^QjvitlTany at all, t»ut jog on in the common 
 road o f nature, which will _neyer 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 lustre when 
 she is unsullied from all artificial garnish. 
 
 Thus if we enquire into the state of all dumb 
 creatures, we shall find those fare best that 
 are left to nature's conduct : as to instance 
 in bees, what is more to be admired than the 
 industry and contrivance of these litde animals ? 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 65 
 
 What architect could ever form so curious a 
 structure as they give a model of in their 
 inimitable combs ? What kingdom can be go- 
 verned 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 
 grass ; 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 
 grass, and a great many other plagues, which he 
 might have avoided, if he had kept to that first 
 station of freedom which nature placed him in. 
 How much more desirable is the unconfined 
 range of flies and birds, who living by instinct, 
 would want nothing to complete their happiness, 
 if some well-employed Domitian would not per- 
 secute 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 
 
66 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 up in a cage, for the being taught to sing, or 
 whistle, all their new tunes make not half so 
 sweet music as their wild notes, and natural 
 melody : so much does that which is but rough- 
 drawn by nature surpass and excel all the 
 additional paint and varnish of art. And we 
 cannot sure but commend and admire that 
 Pythagorean cock, which (as Lucian relates) had 
 been successively a man, a woman, a prince, a 
 subject, a fish, a horse, and a frog ; after all his 
 experience, he summed up his judgment in this 
 censure, that man was the most wretched and 
 deplorable of all creatures, all other patiendy 
 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 swinish- 
 ness, nor forsake his beloved sty, to run the peril 
 of a hazardous voyage. For a farther confir- 
 mation whereof I have the authority of Homer, 
 that captain of all poetry, who, as he gives to 
 mankind in general, the epithet of wretched 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 67 
 
 and unhappy, so he bestows in particular upon 
 Ulysses the title of miserable, which he never 
 attributes to Paris, Ajax, Achilles, or any other 
 of the commanders ; and that for this reason, 
 because Ulysses was more crafty, cautious, and 
 wise, than any of the rest. 
 
 As those therefore f all shortest- of ..happiaessr 
 that reachjhjghest at \yisdom, jxieeting with the 
 greater repulse for soaring beyond the boun- 
 daries 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 circumstances fare best, 
 and live most comfortably ; as first, they are 
 
68 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 void of all fear, which is a very great privilege 
 to be exempted from ; they are troubled with no 
 remorse, nor pricks of conscience ; they are 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 j_Jn short, they are unassaulted_j3y 
 rail those legions of cares that war against the 
 quiet of rational .saiilg ; they are ashamed of 
 nothing, fear no man, banish the uneasiness of 
 ambition, envy, and love ; and to add the rever- 
 sion 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. 
 
 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 unavoid- 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 69 
 
 ably 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 an- 
 tidote to melancholy : whereby they make all 
 persons so fond of their society, that they are 
 welcomed to all places, hugged, caressed, and 
 defended, anberty given them of saying or doing 
 anything ; so well beloved, that^ none dares to 
 offer them the least injury ; nay, the most raven- 
 ous beasts of prey will pass them by untouched, 
 as if by instinct they were warned that such 
 innocence ought to receive no hurt. Farther, 
 their converse is so acceptable in the court of 
 princes, that few kings will banquet, walk, or 
 take any other diversion, without their attend- 
 ance ; nay, and had much rather have their 
 company, than that of their gravest counsellors, 
 whom they maintain more for fashion-sake than 
 
70 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 good-will ; nor is it so strange that these fools 
 should be preferred before graver politicians, 
 since these last, by their harsh, sour advice, 
 and ill-timing the truth, are fit only to put a 
 prince out of the humour, while the others 
 laugh, and talk, and joke, without any danger 
 of disobliging. 
 
 It is one farther very commendable property 
 of fools, that they always speak the truth, than 
 which there is nothing more noble and heroical. 
 For so, though Plato relate it as a sentence of 
 Alcibiades, that in the sea of drunkenness truth 
 swims uppermost, and so wine is the only teller 
 of truth, yet this character may more justly be 
 assumed by me, as I can make good from the 
 authority of Euripides, who lays down this as 
 an axiom /Awpa jLtwpos Xeyei, Children and fools 
 always speak the truth. Whatever the fool has 
 in bis 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 
 dojjble 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 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 71 
 
 prove that to be now white, which he had just 
 before swore to be black ; Hke 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, pr inces in their greatest splen- 
 dour seem upon this account un happy , in that 
 they miss the advantage of being told the truth, 
 and are shammed off by a parcel ofTnsinuating 
 courtiers, that acquit themselves as flatterers 
 more than as friends. But some will perchance 
 object, that prmces 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 speal<ing 
 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 Jo 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 
 
72 Erasmus's praise of Folly, 
 
 it carry with jt nothing of j)ffence to A person 
 whoni 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 sex 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. 
 
 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 pur- 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly, ']2) 
 
 suit whereof he squanders away the pleasantest 
 time of his Hfe in watching, sweat, and fasting ; 
 and in his latter days he never tastes one mouth- 
 ful of delight, but is always stingy, poor, dejected, 
 melancholy, burthensome to himself, and unwel- 
 come to others, pale, lean, thin-jawed, sickly, 
 contracting by his sedentaririess 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 subtlely, '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 
 
74 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 f 
 
 And Plato in his Phsedon ranks the madness 
 of poets, of prophets, and of lovers among those 
 properties which conduce to a happy life. And 
 Virgil, in the sixth ^neid, gives this epithet to 
 his industrious ^neas : — 
 
 If you 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 contentions, by an inexhaustible 
 thirst of power and riches, inflamed to some in- 
 famous and unlawfunusf7~enraged to act the 
 parricide, seduced to become guilty of incest, 
 sacrilege, or some other of those crimson-dyed 
 crimes ; or, finally, to be so pricked in conscience 
 as to be lashed and stung with the whips and 
 snakes of grief and remorse. But there is ano- 
 ther sort of madness that proceeds from-Zolly, 
 
73 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 75 
 
 so far from being any way injurious or distaste- 
 ful that it is thoroughly good and desirable ; 
 and this happens when by a harmless mistake 
 in the judgment of things the mind is freed 
 from those cares which would otherwise grat- 
 ingly afflict it, and smoothed over with a content 
 and satisfaction it could not under other circum- 
 stances so happily enjoy. And this is that 
 comfortable apathy or insensibleness which 
 Cicero, in an epistle to his friend Attieus, 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 the 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 imagination, and the efforts 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 tnind. 
 That had his men unsealed his bottled wine, 
 He zuould not fret, nor doggedly rej)ine. 
 
76 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 And when by a course of physic he was re- 
 covered 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 tJi main 
 Than the disease, the cure augments the pain ; 
 My only hope is a relapse again. 
 
 And certainly they were the more mad of the 
 two who endeavoured to 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 include 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 shallowpated 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 ordi- 
 nary 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 
 
/'aa. J IP. 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. ' 'j'] 
 
 one, born a beggar, should fancy himself as great 
 as a prince, or the like. But this sort of mad- 
 ness, if (as is 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 ima- 
 gines. Thus the whole tribe of madmen make 
 sport among themselves, while one laughs at 
 another ; he that is more mad many times jeer- 
 ing him that is less so. But indeed the greater 
 each man's madness is, the greater is his happi- 
 nessTif it be but such a sort as proceeds from an 
 excess of folly, which is so epidemical a distem- 
 per that it is hard to find any one man so unin- 
 fected 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 strait-bodied woman is with- 
 out more ado sentenced for a madman, because 
 this is so strange a blunder as very seldom hap- 
 pens ; whereas he whose wife is a common jilt, 
 that keeps a warehouse free for all customers, 
 and vet swears she is as chaste as an untouched 
 
/8 Erasmus's praise, of Folly. 
 
 virgin, and hugs himself in his contented mistake, 
 is scarce taken notice of, because he fares no 
 worse than a great many more of his good- 
 natured neighbours. 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 no question 
 think the most sovereign virtues to be in the 
 album Grcecum of a dog's turd. When they 
 have run down their game, what strange plea- 
 sure they take in cutting of it up ! Cows and 
 sheep may be slaughtered by common butchers, 
 but what is killed in hunting must be broke 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 skilled anatomist, while all that stand 
 round shall look very intently, and " seem to be 
 mightily surprised with the novelty, 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 : 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 79 
 
 and though the constant feeding on such diet 
 does but assimilate them to the nature of those 
 beasts they eat of, yet they will swear that veni- 
 son is meat for princes, and that their living 
 upon it makes them as great as emperors. 
 
 Near a kin 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 vir- 
 tuosos, 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 another, and fall upon new experiments, 
 never giving over till they have calcined their 
 
8o Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 animate others what they can to 
 the like undertakings ; nay, when their hopes 
 come to the last gasp, after all their disappoint- 
 ments, they have yet one salvo for their credit, 
 that : — 
 
 In great exploits our hare 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 favourably 
 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 diversion, that at 
 the first rattle of the box their heart shakes 
 within them, and keeps consort with the motion 
 of the dice : they are egg'd 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 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 8i 
 
 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 with- 
 out 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 is prodigiously extravagant ; 
 but the consequence of it ends so oft in down- 
 right 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 
 inquiring after incredible stories of miracles and 
 prodigies : never doubting that a lie will choke 
 them, they will muster up a thousand several 
 strange relations of spirits, ghosts, apparitions, 
 raising of the devil, and such like bugbears of 
 superstition, which the farther they are from 
 being probably 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 
 
 G 
 
82 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 the^re a .good-trnde^-aad-prociiise, a^mfortable 
 income to such priests.and_fx:iars-as-hy_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 morning, they shall be 
 guarded and secured the day following 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. Bar- 
 bara, they shall return safe from all engagements : 
 or if any pray to Erasmus on such particular 
 holidays, with the ceremony of wax candles, and 
 other fopperies, he shall in a short time be re- 
 warded 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 drawing the horse in splendid trappings, 
 very gloriously accoutred, they scarce refrain in 
 a literal sense from worshipping the very beast. 
 What shall I say of such as cry up and main- 
 tain the cheat of pardons and indulgences ? that 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly, 83 
 
 by these compute the time of each soul's resi- 
 dence in purgatory, and assign them a longer or 
 shorter continuance, according as they' purchase 
 more or fewer of these paltry pardons, and sale- 
 able 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 religious impostors inven- 
 ted, either for diversion, or what is more likely 
 for advantage), they shall procure riches, honour, 
 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 happiness, they care not how long 
 it be deferred, having scarce any appetite toward 
 a tasting the joys of heaven, till they are sur- 
 feited, 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 suffi- 
 cientl^gioned for ; so many perjuries, lusts, 
 drunkenness, quarrels, bloodsheds, cheats, trea- 
 
84 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 cheries, and all sorts of debaucheries, 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 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 absurd, as I myself am even ashamed to 
 own, are practised and admired, not only by the 
 vulgar, but by such proficients in religion as one 
 might well expect should have more wit. 
 
 From the same principles of folly proceeds 
 the custom of each country's challenging their 
 particular guardian-saint ; nay, each saint Jhag^ 
 his distinct office allotted to him, and is accord- 
 ingly 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 help per- 
 sons to 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. 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 85 
 
 There are some more catholic saints peti- 
 tioned 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_ prayer s and intercessions that 
 are made to these respective saints the substanc e 
 of them is no niore than downright Folly. 
 Among all the trophies that for tokens of gra- 
 titude 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 were killed upon the spot, as cunningly 
 perhaps as cowardly, made his escape from the 
 field ; another, while he was a hanging, the rope 
 broke, and so he saved his neck, and renewed 
 his licence for practising his old trade of thieving; 
 another broke gaol, and got loose ; a patient, 
 against his physician's will, recovered of a dan- 
 gerous fever ; another drank poison, which put- 
 ting him into a violent looseness, did his body 
 more good than hurt, to the great grief of his 
 
86 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 wife, who hoped upon this occasion to have 
 become a joyful widow ; another had his waggon 
 overturned, and yet none of his horses lamed ; 
 another had caught a grievous fall, and yet 
 recovered from the bruise ; another had been 
 tampering with his neighbour's wife, and escaped 
 very narrowly from being caught by the enraged 
 cuckold in the very act. After all these acknow- 
 ledgments of escapes from such singulardangers, 
 there is none. (^^J^-i'^'^e before iatimated)-4hat 
 return thanks for being freed from Folly ;~Polly 
 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 t 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 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 87 
 
 as when they are gently stroked), would _gart^ 
 with less if they loiew^ more, their bounty pro- 
 ceedmg_orjy^ roni_a jnjs take of ch arity. Now 
 if aiiy grave wise man should stand up, and un- 
 seasonably speak the truth, telling every one 
 that a pio us life is the only way of securing a 
 happy death; that the best title to a 2ardon_of 
 our sins is purchased by a hearty_aMorrence of 
 o uFg^U tjIjand sincere resolutions of amendment ; 
 that the best devotion^ which can be paid to any 
 saints is to imitate them.in their exemplary life : 
 iThe should proceed thus to inform them of 
 their several mistakes, there would be quite 
 another estimate put upon tears, watchings, 
 masses, fastings, and other severities, which 
 before were so much prized, as persons will now 
 be vexed to lose that satisfaction they formerly 
 found in them. 
 
 In the same predicament of fools are to be 
 ranked such, as while they are yet living, and in 
 good health, take so great a. care how^ they shall 
 be^buried when they diej-'that they solemnly ap- 
 point how many torches, how many escutcheons, 
 how many gloves to be given, and how many 
 mourners they will have at their funeral ; as if 
 
88 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 -xjuist 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 re- 
 marks upon another sort of fools ; who, though 
 their first descent was perhaps no better than 
 from a tapster or tinker, yet highly vcJue them- 
 selves upon their birth and~~parehtage. One 
 fetches his pedigree from -^neas, another from 
 Brute, a third from king Arthur : they hang up 
 their ancestors' worm-eaten pictures as records 
 of antiquity, and keep a long list of their prede- 
 cessors, with an account of all their offices and 
 titles, while they themselves are but transcripts 
 of their forefathers' dumb statues, and degenerate 
 even into those very beasts which they carry in. 
 their coat of arms as ensigns of their nobility : 
 and yet by a strong presumption of their birth 
 and quality, they live not only the most pleasant 
 and unconcerned themselyes, but there are not 
 wanting others too who cry up these brutes 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 89 
 
 alm ost equal to the go ds. But why should I 
 dwell upon one or two instances of F o llj; . when 
 there are so many of like nature. Conceitedn ess 
 and self-love making many by strength of Fancy 
 believe themselves happy, when otherwise they 
 are r eally wretched and despi cable. 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 musi- 
 cian, though he have no more skill in the hand- 
 ling of any instrument than a pig playing on the 
 organs : and another that rattles in the throat 
 as hoarse as a cock crows, sheJl be proud of his 
 voice, and think he sings like a nightingale. 
 
 There is another very pleasant sort of mad- 
 ness, whereby persons assume to themselves 
 whatever of accomplishment they discern in 
 others. Thus the happy rich churl in Seneca, 
 who had so short a memory, as he could not 
 tell the least story without a servant standing 
 by to prompt him, and was at the same time so 
 
go Erasmus's praise of Folly, 
 
 weak that he could scarce go upright, yet he 
 thought he might adventure to accept a chal- 
 lenge to a duel, because he kept at home some 
 lusty, sturdy fellows, whose strength he relied 
 upon instead of his own. 
 
 It is almost needless to insist upon the several 
 professors of arts and sciences, who are all so 
 egregiously conceited, 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, musicians, orators, 
 and poets, each of which, the more of duncery 
 they have, and the more of pride, the greater is 
 their ambition : and how notoriously soever dull 
 they be, they meet with their admirers ; nay, the 
 more silly they are the higher they are extolled ; 
 Folly (as we have before intimated) never failing 
 qf^ respect and esteem. If therefore every on e, 
 the more ignorant he is, the, greater satisfactio n 
 he is to himself, and the more commended by 
 others, to what purpose is it to sweat and toil in 
 the pursuit of true learning, which shall cost so 
 many gripes and pangs of the brain to acquire, 
 and when obtained, shall only make the labori- 
 ous student more uneasy to himself, and less 
 acceptable to others .'' 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 91 
 
 As nature in her dispensation of concelted- 
 ness has de alt with priva te j)ersons, so has she 
 given a particular smatch of self-love to each 
 c ountry and natio n.. Upon thisaccount it is 
 that the Eng| ish,^hallenge the prerogative of 
 having the most handsome wom en, of the being 
 most accomplished inThe ski ll of music, and of 
 keeping the best tables : the Scotch brag of 
 their g entilit^a nd 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 elo- 
 quence ; and, like the Grecians of old, account 
 all the world barbarians in respect of themselves ; 
 to which piece of vanity the inhabitants of Rome 
 are more especially addicted, pretending them- 
 selves to be owners of all those heroic virtues, 
 which their city so many ages since was deser- 
 vedly famous for. The Venetians stand upon 
 their birth and pedigree. The Grecians pride 
 themselves in having been the first inventors of 
 most arts, and in their country being famed for 
 
92 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 the product of so many eminent philosophers. 
 The Turks, and all the other refuse of Maho- 
 metism, pretend they profess the only true reli- 
 gion, and laugh at all Christians for superstitious, 
 narrow-souled fools. The Jews to this day ex- 
 pect 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 magick. 
 But not to mention any more, I suppose you are 
 already convinced how great an improvement 
 and addition to the happiness of humanjife is 
 occasioned by self-love : next step to which is 
 flattery ; for as self-love is nothing but the coax- 
 ing up of ourselves, so the same currying and 
 ,r humouring of others is termed flatjery.^^ 
 
 Flattery, it is true, is now lo oked upon as a 
 scandalous ^ijiame, but it is by such only as mind 
 words more than things. They are prejudiced 
 against it upon this account, because they sup- 
 pose it justles out all truth and sincerity ? 
 whereas indeed its property is quite contrary, as 
 appears from the examples of several brute crea- 
 tures. What is more fawning than a spaniel ? 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 93 
 
 And yet what is more faithful to his master ? 
 What is more fond and loving than a tame 
 squirrel ? And yet what . is more sporting 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 shewn only for state 
 and rarity, and otherwise yield no pleasure to 
 their respective keepers. 
 
 ^ There is indeed a pernicious 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 much different nature ; it. proceeds 
 from a softness of spirit, and a flexibleness of 
 good humour, and comes far nearer to virtue 
 than that other extreme of friendship, namely, a 
 stiff, sour, dogged moroseness : it refreshes our 
 minds when tired, enlivens them when melan- 
 choly, reinforces them when languishing, invigo- 
 rates them when heavy, recovers them when 
 sick, and pacifies them when rebellious : it puts 
 us in a method how to grocure friends, and how 
 to keep them ; it entices children to swallow the 
 
94 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 bitter rudiments of learning ; it gives a new fer- 
 ment to the almost stagnated souls of old men ; 
 it both reproves and instructs principles without 
 offence under the mask of commendation : in 
 short, it makes every man fond and indulgent 
 of himself, which is indeed no small part of each 
 man's 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. 
 Ay, but (say you) to flatter is to deceive ; and 
 to deceive is very harsh and hurtful : no, rather 
 just contrary; 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 sublunary matters are 
 enveloped in such a cloud of obscurity, that the 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 95 
 
 short-sightedness of human understanding, can- 
 not pry through and arrive to 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 
 would it but interrupt and abate from the plea- 
 sure of a more happy ignorance. Finally, our 
 souls are so fashione d and moulded, that they 
 are sooner ca ptivated by appearances^ than by 
 rea l truths ; of which, if any one would demand 
 an example, he may find a very familiar one in 
 ch urchgs, where, if what is delivered from the 
 pul pit bfi_ 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, 
 tKe prater I would have said) be zealous, in his 
 thumps of the cushion, antic gestures, and spend 
 his glass in the tellin g of pleasant stor ies, his 
 beloved shall then stand up, tuck their hair 
 behind their ears, and be very^evoutly attentive. 
 So among the saints, those are most resorteTto 
 who are most romantic and fabulous : as for 
 instance, a poetic St. George, a St. Christopher,^ 
 
96 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 pro- 
 perly be referred to another place. 
 
 In the mean while observe what a che ap pur.-_ 
 chase of hapj)iness is made by the strength of 
 fancy. For whereas many things even of incon- 
 siderable 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 palateably, they are to him as good as 
 if they were fresh 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 smutty a 
 draught, yet if he admires the excellency of it, 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 97 
 
 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 been done by one of 
 their hands. I knew a friend of mine that pre- 
 sented his br ide with ^veral false and_coun.t€r- 
 fei Fstones, makin g her believe that they were 
 right jewels, and cost him so many hundred 
 thousand crowns ; under his mistake the poor 
 woman was as choice of pebbles, and painted 
 glass, as if they had been so many natural 
 rubies and diamonds, while the subtle husband 
 saved a great deal in his pocket, and yet made 
 his wife as well ^[ggged as-if heJaad— b@#n-at 
 ten hundred times the_cost. What difference is 
 there betweenthem 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 Lucian, 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 
 
 H 
 
98 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 him only in the price of a single thought ; and 
 then, secondly, because he has more fellow-com- 
 panions and partakers of his good fortune : for 
 no enjoyment is comfortable where the benefit 
 is not imparted to others ; nor is any one station 
 of life desirable, where we can have no converse 
 with persons of the same condition with our- 
 selves : and yet this is the hard fate of wise men, 
 who are grown so scarce, that like Phoenixes, 
 they appear but one in an age. The Grecians, 
 it is true, reckoned up seven within the narrow 
 precincts of their own country ; yet I believe, 
 were they to cast up their accounts anew, they 
 would not find a half, nay, not a third part, of 
 one in far larger extent. 
 
 Farther, when among the several good pro- 
 perties of Bacchus this is looked upon as the 
 chief, namely, that he drowns the cares and 
 anxieties of the mind, though it be indeed but 
 for a short while ; 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 uninterrupted fit of being drunk in 
 conceit, I perpetually cajole the mind with riots, 
 revels, and all the excess and energy of joy. 
 
•^-~"--' ■ - - 
 
 ■m^^ 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 99 
 
 Add to this, that I am so communicative and 
 bountiful, as to let no one particular person pass 
 without some token of my favour ; 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 knack 
 of an accomplished eloquence : Hercules gives 
 not to all the same measure of wealth and riches : 
 Jupiter has ordained but a few to be born to a 
 kingdom : Mars in battle gives a complete vie" 
 tory but to one party ; nay, he often makes them 
 both losers : Apollo does not answer the expec- 
 tation of all that consult his oracles : Jove oft 
 thunders : Phoebus sometimes shoots the plague, 
 or some other infection, at the point of his 
 darts : and Neptune swallows down more than 
 he bears up : not to mention their Ve-Jupiters, 
 their Plutos, their Ate goddess of loss, their 
 evil geniuses, and such other monsters of divi- 
 nity, as had more of the hangman than the god 
 in them, and were worshipped only to deprecate 
 that hurt which used to be inflicted by them : I 
 say, not to mention these, I am that high and 
 
loo Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 humour, 
 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 dangerous manfully to despise 
 them, than sneakingly to attempt the difficulty 
 of pleasing them. Thus some men are of that 
 captious, froward humour, that a man had better 
 be wholly strangers to them, than never so inti- 
 mate friends. 
 
 Well, but there are none (say you) build any 
 altars, or dedicate any temple to Folly. I 
 admire (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 affi-ont, 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 
 
^ 100 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. ioi 
 
 all pers ons every where gay me that more accep- 
 taETe service, which all divines agra& --to--b&-more 
 effectual and meritorious, namely^jaO-Jmitation 
 of mj^3°IIUffi^Bipa^b-le --^tributes ? I do not 
 therefore any way 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 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 aniong christians as is much to 
 be wished it were : for how many zealous vota- 
 ries are there that pay so profounA-Xespect 
 to the Virgin Mary, as to place lighted t^j^pers 
 everf at noon day upon her^tars ? And yet ' 
 how few of them copy after_her_ ug|ouched j:has- 
 tity, her modesty^ and her jatkeL-Ci^in^m 
 virtues, in the imitation^ wiiereflf^^snsists the 
 truest esteem of divine worship ? Farther, why 
 should^ I desire a temple, since the whole world 
 is but one ample continued choir, entirely dedi- 
 cated to my use and service ? Nor do I want 
 worshippers at any place where the earth wants 
 not inhabitants. And as to the manner of my 
 
I02 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 worship, I am not yet so irrecoverably foolish, 
 as to be prayed to by proxy, and to have my 
 honour intermediately bestowed upon senseless 
 images and pictures, which quite subvert the true 
 end of religion ; while the unwary supplicants 
 seldom distinguish betwixt the things themselves 
 and the objects they represent. The same res- 
 pect 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 irnage^_o£_me,^^£., the signal 
 of Folly instamped^on his countenance. I have 
 not therefore the least tempting inducement to 
 envy the more seeming state and splendour of 
 the other gods, who are worshipped at set times 
 and places ; as Phoebus at Rhodes, Venus in 
 her Cyprian isle, Juno in the city Argos, Mi- 
 nerva at Athens, Jupiter on the hill Olympus, 
 Neptune at Tarentum, and Priapus in the town 
 of Lampsacum ; while my worship extending as 
 far as my influence, the whole world is my one 
 altar, whereon the most valuable incense and 
 sacrifice is perpetually offered up. 
 
 But lest I should seem to speak this with 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 103 
 
 more of confidence than truth, let us take a 
 nearer view of the mode of men's lives, whereby 
 it will be rendered more apparently evident what 
 largesses I everywhere bestow, and how much I 
 am respected and esteemed of persons, from the 
 highest to the basest 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 commonalty 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 subject 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, whatsportjjvhat dLvfirsion,-, the.^K^^ 
 inhabitants here on earth give to^ the above- 
 seated gods in heaven : for these exalted deities 
 
104 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 spend their fasting sober hours in listening to 
 those petitions that are offered up, and in suc- 
 couring such as they are appealed to by for 
 redress ; but when they are a little entered at a 
 glass of nectar, they then throw off all serious 
 concerns, and go and place themselves on the 
 ascent of some promontory in heaven, and from 
 thence survey the little mole-hill of earth. And 
 trust me, there cannot be a mor e delig htsiapie 
 prospect, than to view such a theatre so stuffed 
 and crammed with swarms of fools. One falls 
 desperatefyTn love, 'emd'^e' more he is slighted 
 the more does his spaniel-like passion increase ; 
 another is wedded to wealth rather than to a wife; 
 a third pimps for his own spouse, and is content 
 to be a cuckold so he may wear his horns gilt ; a 
 fourth is haunted with a jealousy of his visiting 
 neighbours; another sobs and roars, and plays the 
 child, for the death of a friend or relation ; 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 lamentations ; 
 another hypocritically weeps at the funeral of 
 one whose death at heart he rejoices for ; here 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 105 
 
 a gluttonous cormorant, whatever he can scrape 
 up, thrusts all into his guts 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 
 great, though they can never pay, till they break, 
 and compound for their debts ; one is so cove- 
 tous 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 pur- 
 chase of a livelihood ; another will depend on the 
 plunders of war, rather than on the honest gains 
 of peace ; some will close with and humour such 
 warm old blades as have a good estate, and no 
 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 beat at their own wea- 
 pons, and (as oft happens) are gulled by those 
 very persons they intended to make a prey of. 
 
io6 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 There is another sort of base scoundrels in 
 gentility, such scraping merchants, who although, 
 for the better vent of their commodities they lie, 
 swear, cheat, and practice all the intrigues of 
 dishonesty, yet thitik 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 insinuating 
 hangers on, as shall caress and compliment them 
 with the greatest respect, in hopes to go snacks 
 in some of their dishonest gains ; there are 
 others so infected with the philosophical paradox 
 of banishing property, and having all things in 
 common, that they make no conscience of fas- 
 tening on, and purloining whatever they can get, 
 and converting it to their own use and posses- 
 sion ; there are some who are rich only in wishes, 
 and yet while they barely dream of vast moun- 
 tains of wealth, they are as happy as if their 
 imaginary fancies commenced real truths; some 
 put on the best side outermost, and starve them- 
 selves at home to appear gay and splendid 
 abroad ; one with an open-handed freedom' 
 spends all he lays his fingers on ; another with 
 a logic-fisted gripingness- catches at and grasps 
 

Erasmus's praise of Folly. 107 
 
 all he can come within the reach of; one apes 
 it about in the streets to court popularity ; ano- 
 ther consults his ease, and sticks to the confine- 
 ment of a chimney-corner; many others are 
 tugging 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-modelling a 
 settled government ; another is for some notable 
 heroical 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 
 impertinent 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 quarrelling with each other, justling, fight- 
 ing, fluttering, skipping, playing, just new pro- 
 duced, soon after decaying, and then immediately 
 vanishing; and it can scarce be thought how 
 many tumults and tragedies so inconsiderate a 
 creature as man does give occasion to, and that 
 in so short a space as the small span of life ; 
 
io8 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 subject to so many casualties, that the sword, 
 pestilence, and other epidemic accidents, shall 
 many times sweep away whole thousands at a 
 brush. 
 
 But hold ; I should but expose myself too far, 
 and incur the guilt of being roundly laughed at, 
 if I proceed to enumerate the several kinds of 
 the folly of the vulgar. I shall confine therefore 
 my following discourse only to such as challenge 
 the repute of wisdom, and seemingly pass for 
 men of the soundest intellectuals. Among whom 
 the Grammarians present themselves in the front, 
 a sort of men who would be the most miserable, 
 the most slavish, and the most hateful of all 
 persons, if I did not in some way alleviate the 
 pressures and miseries of their profession by 
 blessing them with a bewitching 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 always damned to thirst and hunger, 
 to be choked with dust in their unswept schools 
 (schools, shall I term them, or rather elaborato- 
 ries, nay, bridewells, and houses of correction ?), 
 to wear out themselves in fret and drudgery ; 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 109 
 
 to be deafened with the noise of gaping boys ; 
 and in short, to be stifled with heat and stench ; 
 and yet they cheerfully dispense with all these 
 inconveniences, and, by the help of a fond con- 
 ceit, think themselves as happy as any men 
 living: taking a great pride and delight in 
 frowning and looking big upon the trembling 
 urchins, in boxing, 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 ; can 
 reconcile their nose "to the most intolerable 
 smells ; and finally, tliink their wretched slavery 
 the most arbitrary kingdom, which they would 
 not exchange for the jurisdiction of the most 
 sovereign potentate : and they are yet more 
 happy by a strong persuasion 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 than the 
 best experienced philosopher ; nay, they have 
 
I lo Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 an art of making ordinary people, such as their 
 school boys' fond parents, to think them as con- 
 siderable as their own pride has made them. 
 Add hereunto this other sort of ravishing plea- 
 sure : when any of them has found out who was 
 the mother of Anchises, or has lighted upon 
 some old unusual word, such as bubsequa, bovi- 
 nator, manticulator, or other like obsolete cramp 
 terms ; or can, after a great deal of poring, spell 
 out the inscription of some battered monument ; 
 Lord ! what joy, what triumph, what congratu- 
 lating their success, as if they had conquered 
 Africa, or taken Babylon the Great! When 
 they recite some of their frothy, bombast 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 are now become actu- 
 ated with a descent of Virgil's poetic 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 hap to be 
 guilty of the least slip, or seeming blunder, ano- 
 ther shall presently correct him for it, and then 
 to it they go in a tongue-combat, with all the 
 
T'uiSbMK'' '^• 1 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. i i i 
 
 fervour, 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 mathe- 
 matician, a philosopher, a musician, and all to the 
 utmost perfection, who, after threescore years' 
 experience in the world, had spent the last 
 twenty of them only in drudging to conquer the 
 criticisms of grammar, and made it the chief part 
 of his prayers, that his life might be so long 
 spared till he had learned how rightly to distin- 
 guish betwixt the eight parts of speech, which 
 no grammarian, whether Greek or Latin, had 
 yet accurately done. If any chance to have 
 placed that as a conjunction which ought to 
 have been used as an adverb, it is a sufficient 
 alarm to raise a war for doing justice to the 
 injured word. And since there have been as 
 many several grammars, as particular gramma- 
 rians (nay, more, for Aldus alone wrote five dis- 
 tinct grammars for his own share), the school- 
 master must be obliged to consult them all, 
 sparing for no time nor trouble, though never 
 so great, lest he should be otherwise posed in 
 an unobserved criticism, and so by an irrepar- 
 
112 Erasmus's praise of Folly, 
 
 able disgrace lose the reward of all his toil. It 
 is indifferent to me whether you call this folly or 
 madness, since you must needs confess that it is 
 by my influence these school-tyrants, though in 
 never so despicable a condition, are so happy in 
 their own thoughts, that they would not change 
 fortunes with the most illustrious Sophi of Persia, 
 
 The Poets, however somewhat less beholden 
 to me, own a professed dependence on me, being 
 a sort of lawless blades, that by prescription 
 claim a license to a proverb, while the whole 
 intent of their profession is only to smooth up 
 and tickle the ears of fools, that by mere toys 
 and fabulous shams, with which (however ridi- 
 culous) they are so bolstered up in an airy ima- 
 gination, as to promise themselves an everlasting 
 name, and promise, by their balderdash, at the 
 same time to celebrate the never-dying memory 
 of others. To these rapturous wits self-love 
 and flattery are never-failing attendants ; nor do 
 any prove more zealous or constant devotees to 
 folly. 
 
 The Rhetoricians likewise, though they are 
 ambitious of being ranked among the Philoso- 
 phers, yet are apparently of my faction, as 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 113 
 
 appears among other arguments, by this more 
 especially ; in that among their several topics 
 of completing the art of oratory, they all parti- 
 cularly insist upon the knack of jesting, which 
 is one species of folly ; as is evident from the 
 books of oratory wrote to Herennius, put among 
 Cicero's work, but done by some other unknown 
 author ; and in Quintilian, that great master of 
 eloquence, there is one large chapter spent in 
 prescribing the methods of raising laughter : in 
 short, they may well attribute a great efficacy to 
 folly, since on any argument they can many 
 times by a slight laugh over what they could 
 never seriously confute. 
 
 Of the same gang are those scribbling fops, 
 who think to eternize their memory by setting 
 up for authors : among which, though they are 
 all some way indebted to me, yet are those more 
 especially so, who spoil paper in blotting it with 
 mere trifles and impertinences. For as to those 
 graver drudgers to the press, that write learnedly, 
 beyond the reach of an ordinary reader, who 
 durst submit their labours to the review of the 
 most severe critic, these are not so liable to be 
 envied for their honour, as to be pitied for their 
 
114 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 sweat and slavery. They make additions, alte- 
 rations, blot out, write anew, amend, interline, 
 turn it upside down, and yet can never please 
 their fickle judgment, but that they shall dislike 
 the next hour what they penned the former ; and 
 all this to purchase the airy commendations of a 
 few understanding readers, which at most is but 
 a poor reward for all their fastings, watchings, 
 confinements, and brain - breaking tortures of 
 invention. Add to this the impairing of their 
 health, the weakening of their constitution, their 
 contracting sore eyes, or perhaps turning stark 
 blind ; their poverty, their envy, their debarment 
 from all pleasures, their hastening on old age, 
 their untimely death, and what other inconveni- 
 ences of a like or worse nature can be thought 
 upon : and yet the recompense for all this severe 
 penance is at best no more than a mouthful or 
 two of frothy praise. These, as they are more 
 laborious, so are they less happy than those 
 other hackney scribblers which I first mentioned, 
 who never stand much to consider, but write 
 what comes next at a venture, knowing that the 
 more silly their composures are, the more they 
 will be bought up by the greater number of rea- 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. i 15 
 
 ders, who are fools and blockheads : and if they 
 hap to be condemned by some few judicious 
 persons, it is an easy matter by clamour to 
 drown their censure, and to silence them by 
 urging the more numerous commendations of 
 others. They are yet the wisest who transcribe 
 whole discourses from others, and then reprint 
 them as their own. By doing so they make a 
 cheap and easy seizure to themselves of that 
 reputation which cost the first author so much 
 • time and trouble to procure. If they are at any 
 time pricked a little in conscience for fear of dis- 
 covery, they feed themselves however with this 
 hope, that if they be at last found plagiaries, 
 yet at least for some time they have the credit 
 of passing for the genuine authors. It is plea-^ 
 sant to see how all these several wjiters are 
 puffed"up with the least blast of applause, espe- 
 cially if they come to the honour of being pointed 
 at as they walk along the streets, when their 
 several pieces are laid open upon every book- 
 seller's stall, when their names are embossed in 
 a different character upon the title-page, some- 
 time only with the two first letters, and some- 
 time with fictious cramp terms, which few shall 
 
ii6 Erasmus's praise of Folly, 
 
 understand the meaning of ; and of those that 
 do, all shall not agree in their verdict of the 
 performance ; some censuring, others approving 
 it, men's judgments being as different as their 
 palates, that being toothsome to one which is 
 unsavoury and nauseous to another : though it 
 is a sneaking piece of cowardice for authors to 
 put feigned names to their works, as if, like bas- 
 tards of their brain, they were afraid to own them. 
 Thus one styles himself Telemachus, another 
 Stelenus, a third Polycrates, another Thrasyma- 
 chus, and so on. By the same liberty we may 
 ransack the whole alphabet, and jumble together 
 any letters that come next to hand. It is farther 
 very pleasant when these coxcombs employ their 
 pens in writing congratulatory epistles, poems, 
 and panegyricks, upon each other, wherein one 
 shall be complimented with the title of Alcseus, 
 another shall be charactered for the incomparable 
 Callimachus; this shall be commended for a com- 
 pleter orator than Tully himself; a fourth shall 
 be told by his fellow-fool that the divine Plato 
 comes short of him for a philosophic soul. 
 Sometime again they take up the cudgels, and 
 challenge out an antagonist, and so get a name 
 
//7 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 117 
 
 by a combat at dispute and controversy, while 
 the unwary readers draw sides according to their 
 different judgments : the longer the quarrel holds 
 the more irreconcilable it grows ; and when both 
 parties are weary, they each pretend themselves 
 the conquerors, and both lay claim to the credit 
 of coming off with victory. These fooleries 
 make sport for wise men, as being highly absurd, 
 ridiculous and extravagant. True, but yet these 
 paper - combatants, by my assistance, are so 
 flushed with a conceit of their own greatness, 
 that they prefer the solving of a syllogism before 
 the sacking of Carthage ; and upon the defeat 
 of a poor objection carry themselves more tri- 
 umphant than the most victorious Scipio. 
 
 Nay, even the learned and more judicious, 
 that have wit enough to laugh at the other's 
 folly, are very much beholden to my goodness ; 
 which (except ingratitude have drowned their 
 ingenuity), they must be ready upon all occasions 
 to confess. Among these I suppose the lawyers 
 will shuffle in for precedence, and they of all men 
 have the greatest conceit of their own abilities. 
 They will argue as confidently as if they spoke 
 gospel instead of law ; they will cite you six 
 
n8 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 hundred several precedents, thoxigh not one of 
 them come near to the case in .hand ; they will 
 muster up the authority of judgments, deeds, 
 glosses, and reports, and tumble over so many 
 musty records, that they make jtheir employ, 
 though in itself easy, the greatest slavery imagi- 
 nable; always accounting that the best plea 
 which they have took most pains for. 
 
 To these, as bearing great resemblance to 
 them, may be added logicians and sophisters, 
 fellows that talk as much by rote as a parrot ; 
 who shall run down a whole gossiping of old 
 women, nay, silence the very noise of a belfry, 
 with louder clappers than those of the steeple ; 
 and if their unappeasable clamorousness were 
 their only fault it would admit of some excuse ; 
 but they are at the same time so fierce and 
 quarrelsome, that they will wrangle bloodily for 
 the least trifle, and be so over intent and eager, 
 that they many times lose their game in the chase 
 and fright away that truth they are hunting for. 
 i^ Yet self-conceit makes these nimble disputants 
 such doughty champions, that armed with three 
 or four close-linked syllogisms' they shall enter 
 the lists with the greatest masters of reason, and 
 
J28 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 119 
 
 not question the foiling of them in an irresistible 
 baffle : nay, their obstinacy makes them so con- 
 fident of their being in the right, that all the 
 arguments in the world shall never convince 
 them to the contrary. 
 
 Next to these come the phil osophers i n their 
 long beards and short cloaks, who esteem them- 
 selves the only favourites q£ wisdom, and look 
 upon the rest of mankind as the dirt and rubbish 
 of the creation : yet these men's happiness is 
 only a frantic craziness of brain ; they build 
 castles in the air, and infinite worlds in a vacuum. 
 They will give you to a hair's breadth the 
 dimensions of the sun, moon, and stars, as easily 
 as they v/ould do that of a flaggon or pipkin : 
 they will give a punctual account of the rise of 
 thunder, of the origin of winds, of the nature of 
 eclipses, and of all the other abstrusest difficulties 
 in physics, without the least demur or hesitation, 
 as if they had been admitted into the cabinet 
 council" of nature, or had been eye-witnesses to 
 all the accurate methods of creation ; though alas 
 nature does but laugh at all their puny conjec- 
 tures ; for they never yet made one considerable 
 discovery, as appears in that they are unanimously 
 
I20 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 agreed in no one point of the smallest moment ; 
 nothing so plain or evident but what by some or 
 other is opposed and contradicted. But though 
 they are ignorant of the artificial contexture of 
 the least insect, they vaunt however, and brag 
 that they know all things, when indeed they are 
 unable to construe the mechanism of their own 
 body : nay, when they are so purblind as not to 
 be able to see a stone's cast before them, yet 
 they shall be as sharp-sighted as possible in 
 spying-out ideas, universals, separate forms, first 
 matters, quiddities, formalities, and a hundred 
 such like niceties, so diminutively small, that 
 were not their eyes extremely magnifying, all 
 the art of optics could never make them discer- 
 nible. But they then most despise the low gro- 
 velling vulgar when they bring out their parallels, 
 triangles, circles, and other mathematical figures, 
 drawn up in battalia, like so many spells and' 
 charms of conjuration in muster, with letters to 
 refer to the explication of the several problems ; 
 hereby raising devils as it were, only to have the 
 credit of laying them, and amusing the ordinary 
 spectators into wonder, because they have not 
 wit enough to understand the juggle. Of these 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 121 
 
 some undertake to profess themselves judicial 
 astrologers, pretending to keep correspondence 
 with the stars, and so from their information can 
 resolve any query ; and though it is all but a 
 presumptuous imposture, yet some to be sure 
 will be so great fools as to believe them. 
 
 The d ivines present themselves next ; but it 
 may perhaps be most safe to pass them by, and 
 not to touch upon so harsh a string as this sub- 
 ject would afford. Beside, the undertaking may 
 be very hazardous ; for they are a sort of men 
 generally very hot and passionate ; and should I 
 provoke them, I doubt not would set upon me 
 with a full cry, and force me with shame to re- 
 cant, which if I stubbornly refuse to do, they will 
 presently brand me for a heretic, and thunder 
 out an excommunication, „which is their spiritual 
 weapon to wound such as lift up a hand against 
 them,_ It is true, no men own a less dependence 
 on me, yet have they reason to confess them- 
 selves indebted for no small obligations. For it is 
 by one of my properties, self-love, that they fancy 
 themselves, with their elder brother Paul, caught 
 up into the third heaven, from whence, like shep- 
 herds indeed, they look down upon their flock, 
 
122 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 the laity, grazing as it were, in the vales of the 
 world below. They fence themselves in with 
 so many surrounders of magisterial definitions, 
 conclusions, corollaries, propositions explicit and 
 implicit, that there is no falling in with them ; 
 or if they do chance to be urged to a seeming 
 non-plus, yet they find out so many evasions, 
 that all the art of man can never bind them so 
 fast, but that an easy distinction shall give them 
 a starting-hole to escape the scandal of being 
 baffled. They will cut asunder the toughest 
 argument with as much ease as Alexander did 
 the gordian knot ; they will thunder out so many 
 rattling terms as shall fright an adversary into 
 conviction. They are exquisitely dexterous in 
 unfolding the most intricate mysteries ; they will 
 tell you to a tittle all the successive proceedings 
 of Omnipotence in the creation of the universe ; 
 they will explain the precise manner of original 
 sin being derived from our first parents ; they 
 will satisfy you in what manner, by what degrees, 
 and in how long a time, our Saviour was con- 
 ceived in the Virgin's womb, and demonstrate 
 in the consecrated wafer how accidents may 
 subsist without a subject. Nay, these are 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 123 
 
 accounted trivial, easy questions ; they have yet 
 far greater difficulties behind, which notwith- 
 standing they solve with as much expedition as 
 the former; as namely, whether supernatural 
 generation requires any instant of time for its 
 acting ? whether Christ, as a son, bears a double 
 specifically distinct relation to God the Father, 
 and his virgin mother ? whether this proposition 
 is possible to be true, the first person of the Tri- 
 nity hated the second ? whether God, who took 
 our nature upon him in the form of a man, could 
 as well have become a woman, a devil, a beast, 
 a herb, or a stone ? and were it so possible that 
 the Godhead had appeared in any shape of an 
 inanimate substance, how he should then have 
 preached his gospel ? or how have been nailed 
 to the cross ? whether if St. Peter had celebrated 
 the eucharist at the same time our Saviour was 
 hanging on the cross, the consecrated bread 
 would have been transubstantiated into the same 
 body that remained on the tree ? whether in 
 Christ's corporal presence in the sacramental 
 wafer, his humanity be not abstracted from his 
 Godhead ? whether after the resurrection we 
 shall carnally eat and drink as we do in this life ? 
 
i:;4 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 There are a tliousand other more sublimated and 
 refined niceties of notions, relations, quantities, 
 formalities, quiddities, haeccities, and such like 
 abstrusities, as one would think no one could pry 
 into, except he had not only such cat's eyes as 
 to see best in the dark, but even such a piercing 
 faculty as to see through an inch-board, and spy 
 out what really never had any being. Add to 
 these some of their tenets and opinions, which 
 are so absurd and extravagant, that the wildest 
 fancies of the Stoicks which they so much dis- 
 dain and decry as paradoxes, seem in comparison 
 just and rational ; as their maintaining, that it is 
 a less aggravating fault to kill a hundred men, 
 than for a poor cobbler to set a stitch on the 
 sabbath-day ; or, that it is more justifiable to do 
 the greatest injury^ imaginable to others, than to 
 tell tlie least lie ourselves. And these subtleties 
 are alchymized to a more refined sublimate by 
 tlie abstracting brains of their several schoolmen; 
 the Realists, the Nominalists, tlie Thomists, the 
 Albertists, the Occamists, the Scotists ; these 
 are not all, but the rehearsal of a few onh", as 
 a specimen of tlieir divided sects ; in each of 
 whicli tliere is so mucli of deep learning, so 
 
Erasmus's praise of FoLi-v. 125 
 
 much of unfathomable difficulty, that I believe 
 the apostles themselves would stand in need of 
 a new illuminating spirit, if they were to engage 
 in any controversy with these new divines. St. 
 Paul, no question, had a full measure of faith ; 
 yet when he lays down faith to be the substance 
 of things not seen, these men carp at it for an 
 imperfect definition, and would undertake to 
 teach the apostles better logic. Thus the same 
 holy author wanted for nothing of the grace of 
 chainty, yet (say they) he describes and defines 
 it but very inaccurately, when he ti-eats of it in 
 the thirteenth chapter of his first epistle to the 
 Corinthians. The primitive disciples were very 
 frequent in administerino- the holy sacrament, 
 breaking bread from house to house ; yet should 
 they be asked of the Tcrniiiius a quo and the 
 Tcniiiiuts ad qiton, the nature of transubstantia- 
 tion ? the manner how one body can be in seve- 
 ral places at the same time ? the difference be- 
 twixt the several attributes of Christ in heaven, 
 on the cross, and in the consecrated bread ? 
 what time is required for the transubstantiating 
 the bread into llesh ? how it can be done by a 
 short sentence pronounced by the priest, which 
 
126 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 sentence is a species of discreet quantity, that 
 has no permanent punctum ? Were they asked 
 (I say) these, and several other confused queries, 
 I do not believe they could answer so readily as 
 our mincing school-men now-a-days take a pride 
 to do. They were well acquainted with the 
 Virgin Mary, yet none of them undertook to 
 prove that she was preserved immaculate from 
 original sin, as some of our divines very hotly 
 contend for. St. Peter had the keys given to 
 him, and that by our Saviour himself, who had 
 never entrusted him except he had known him 
 capable of their manage and custody ; and yet 
 it is much to be questioned whether Peter was 
 sensible of that subtlety broached by Scotus, 
 that he may have the key of knowledge effect- 
 ually for others, who has no knowledge actually 
 in himself. Again, they baptized all nations, 
 and yet never taught what was the formal^mate- 
 rial, efficient, and final cause of baptisrn, and 
 certainly never dreamt of distinguishing between 
 a delible and an indelible character in this sacra- 
 ment. They worshipped in the spirit, following 
 their master's injunction, God is a spirit, and they 
 which worship him, must worship him in spirit, 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 127 
 
 and in truth ; yet it does not appear that it was 
 ever revealed to them how divine adoration 
 should be paid at the same time to our blessed 
 Saviour in heaven, and to his picture here below 
 on a wall, drawn with two fingers held out, a 
 bald crown, and a circle round his head. To 
 reconcile these intricacies to an appearance of 
 reason requires three-score years' experience in 
 metaphysics. 
 
 Farther, the apostles often mention Grace, yet 
 never distinguish between gratia, gratis data, 
 and gratia gratificans. They earnestly exhort 
 us likewise to good works, yet never explain the 
 difference between Opus operans, and Opus ope- 
 ratum. They very frequently press and invite 
 us to seek after charity, without dividing it into 
 infused and acquired, or determining whether it 
 be a substance or an accident, a created or an 
 uncreated being. They detested sin themselves, 
 and warned others from the commission of it ; 
 and yet I am sure they could never have defined 
 so dogmatically, as the Scotists have since done. 
 St. Paul, who in other's judgment is no less the 
 chief of the apostles, than he was in his own the 
 chief of sinners, who being bred at the feet of 
 
128 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 Gamaliel, was certainly more eminently a scho- 
 lar than any of the rest, yet he often exclaims 
 against vain philosophy, warns us from doting 
 about questions and strifes of words, and charges 
 us to avoid profane and vain babblings, and 
 oppositions of science falsely so called; which 
 he would not have done, if he had thought it 
 worth his while to have become acquainted with 
 them, which he might soon have been, the dis- 
 putes of that age being but small, and more 
 intelligible sophisms, in reference to the vastly 
 greater intricacies they are now improved to. 
 ! But yet, however, our scholastic divines are so 
 modest, that if they meet with any passage in St. 
 Paul, or any other penman of holy writ, which is 
 not so well modelled, or critically disposed of, as 
 they could wish, they will not roughly condemn 
 it, but bend it rather to a favorable interpretation, 
 out of reverence to antiquity, and respect to the 
 holy scriptures ; though indeed it were unreason- 
 able to expect anything of this nature from the 
 apostles, whose lord and master had given unto 
 them to know the mysteries of God, but not 
 those of philosophy. If the same divines meet 
 with anything of like nature unpalatable in St. 
 
Erasmus's /ria;w^ ^ Folly. 129 
 
 Chrysostom, St. Basil, St. Hierom, or others of 
 the fathers, they will not stick to appeal from 
 their authority, and very fairly resolve that they 
 lay under a mistake. Yet these ancient fathers 
 were they who confuted both the Jews and 
 Heathens, though they both obstinately adhered 
 to their respective prejudices ; they confuted 
 them (I say), yet by their lives and miracles, 
 rather than by words and syllogisms ; and the 
 persons they thus proselyted were downright 
 honest, well meaning people, such as understood 
 pl3in^£nj£.JafiQ£X-JJ3aiL.JJiy. artificial pomp of 
 reasoning: whereas if our divines should now 
 set about the gaining converts from paganism by 
 their metaphysical subtleties, they would find that 
 most of the persons they applied themselves to 
 were either so ignorant as not at all to apprehend 
 them, or so impudent as to scoff and deride them; 
 or finally, so well skilled at the same weapons, 
 that they would be able to keep their pass, and 
 fence off all assaults of conviction : and this last 
 way the victory would be altogether as hopeless, 
 as if two persons were engaged of so equal 
 strength, that it were impossible any one should 
 overpower the other. 
 
 K 
 
1 30 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 If my judgment might be taken, I would ad- 
 vise Christians, in their next expedition to a holy 
 war, instead of those many unsuccessful legions, 
 which they have hitherto sent to encounter the 
 Turks and Saracens, that they would furnish out 
 their clamorous Scotists, their obstinate Occa- 
 mists, their invincible Albertists, and all their 
 forces of tough, crabbed and profound disputants : 
 the engagement, I fancy, would be mighty plea- 
 sant, and the victory we may imagine on our 
 side not to be questioned. For which of the 
 enemies would not veil their turbants at so 
 solemn an appearance ? Which of the fiercest 
 Janizaries would not throw away his scimitar, 
 and all the half-moons be eclipsed by the inter- 
 position of so glorious an army ? 
 
 I suppose you mistrust I speak all this by way 
 of jeer and iron}^; and well I may, since among 
 divines themselves there are some so ingenious 
 as to despise these captious and frivolous imper- 
 tinences : they look upon it as a kind of profane 
 sacrilege, and a little less than blasphemous im- 
 piety, to determine of such niceties in religion, 
 as ought rather to be the subject of an humble 
 and uncontradicting faith,, than of a" scrupulous 
 
J3I 
 
 /yr^- 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 131 
 
 and inquisitive reason : they abhor a defiling the 
 Inj^eries of Christianity with an intermixture of 
 hearfienish philosophy, and judge it very im- 
 proper to reduce divinity to an obscure specula- 
 tive science, whose end is such a happiness as 
 can be gained only by the means of practice. 
 But alas, those notio nal divines, however con- 
 demned by the soberer judgment of others, are 
 yet mightily pleased with themselves, and are 
 so laboriously intent upon prosecuting their 
 crabbed studies, that they cannot afford so much 
 time as to read a single chapter in any one book 
 of the whole bible. And while they thus trifle 
 away their mis-spent hours in trash and babble, 
 they think that they support the Catholic Church 
 with the props and pillars of propositions and 
 syllogisms, no less effectually than Atlas is 
 feigned by the poets to sustain on his shoulders 
 the burden of a tottering world. Their privi- 
 leges, too, and authority are very considerable^: 
 they can deal with any text of scripture as with 
 a nose of wax, knead it into what shape best 
 suits' their interest ; and whatever conclusions 
 they have dogmatically resolved upon, they 
 would have them as irrepealably ratified as 
 
132 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 Solon's laws, and in as great force as the very 
 decrees of the papal chair. If any be so bold as 
 to remonstrate to their decisions, they will bring 
 him on his knees to a recantation of his impu- 
 dence. They shall pronounce as irrevocably as 
 an oracle, this proposition is scandalous, that 
 irreverent ; this has a smack of heresy, and that 
 is bald and improper ; so that it is not the being 
 baptised into the church, the believing of the 
 scriptures, the giving credit to St. Peter, St. Paul, 
 St. Hierom, St. Augustin, nay, or St. Thomas 
 Aquinas himself, that shall make a man a Chris- 
 tian, except he have the joint suffrage of these 
 novices in learning, who have blessed the world 
 no doubt with a great many discoveries, which 
 had never come to light, if they had not struck 
 the fire of subtlety out of the flint of obscurity. 
 These fooleries sure must be a happy employ. 
 
 Farther, they make as many partitions and 
 divisions in hell and~^rgatoryj and describe as 
 many different sorts and degrees of punishment 
 as if they were . very-well- acquainted withr the 
 soil and situation of those infernal regions. And 
 to prepare a seat for the blessed! above, they in- 
 vent new orbs, and a stately empyrean heaven. 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 133 
 
 so wide and spacious as if they had purposely 
 contrived it, that the glorified saints might have 
 room enough to walk, to feast, or to take any 
 recreation. 
 
 With these, and a thousand more such like 
 toys, their heads are more _stuffed_and^^welled 
 than Jove, when he went big of Pallas in his 
 brim, and was forced to use the midwifery of 
 Vulcan's axe to ease him of his teeming burden. 
 Do not wonder, therefore, that at public dispu- 
 tations they bind their heads with so many caps 
 one over another ; for this is to prevent the loss 
 of their brains, which would otherwise break out 
 from their uneasy confinement. It affords like- 
 wise a pleasant scene of laughter, to listen to 
 these divines in their hotly managed disputations ; 
 to see how proud they are of talking such hard 
 gibberish, and stammering out such blundering 
 distinctions, as the auditors perhaps may some- 
 times gape at, but seldom apprehend : and they 
 take such a liberty in their speaking of Latin, 
 that they scorn to stick at the exactness of syntax 
 or concord ; pretending it is below the majesty 
 of a divine to talk like a pedagogue, and be tied 
 to the slavish observance of the rules of grammar. 
 
. 134 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 Finally, they take a vast pride, among other 
 citations, to allege the authority of their respec- 
 tive master, which word they bear as profound 
 a respect to as the Jews did to their ineffable 
 tetragrammaton, and therefore they will be sure 
 never to write it any otherwise than in great 
 letters, M AGISTER NOSTER; and if any 
 happen to invert the order of the words, and 
 say, noster magister, instead of magister noster, 
 they will presently exclaim against him as a pes- 
 tilent heretic and underminer of the catholic faith. 
 The next to these are another sort of brain- 
 sick fools, who style themselves monks and of 
 religious orders, though they assume toth 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 solitari- 
 ness, or being alone ; whereas they are so thick 
 abroad thatwe cannot pass any street or alley 
 without meeting them. Now I cannot imagine 
 what one degree of men would be more hope- 
 lessly wretched, if I did not stand their friend, 
 and buoy them up in that lake of misery, which 
 by the engagements of a holy vow they have 
 voluntarily immerged themselves in. But when 
 
'E'RASM.vs's praise o/ FoLtY. 135 
 
 these sort of men are so unwelcome to others, as 
 that the very sight of them is thought ominous, I 
 yet make them highly in love with themselves, 
 and fond admirers of their own happiness. The 
 first step whereunto they esteem a profound 
 ignorance, thinking carnal knowledge a great 
 enemy to their spiritual welfare, and seem con- 
 fident of becoming greater proficients in divine 
 mysteries the less they are poisoned with any 
 human learning. They imagine that they bear a 
 sweet consort with the heavenly choir, when they 
 tone out their daily tally of psalms, which they 
 rehearse only by rote, without permitting their 
 understanding or affectignsjto go along with their 
 voice. Among these some make a good profit- 
 able trade of beggary, going about from house to 
 house, not like the apostles, to break, but to beg, 
 their bread ; nay, thrust into all public-houses, 
 come aboard the passage-boats, get into the tra- 
 velling waggons, and omit no opportunity of time 
 or place for the craving people's charity ; doing 
 a great deal of injury to common highway beg- 
 gars by interloping in their traffic of alms. And 
 when they are thus voluntarily poor, destitute, 
 not provided with two coats, nor with any money 
 
136 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 in their purse, they have the impudence to pre- 
 tend that they imitate the first disciples, whom 
 their master expressly sent out in such an equi- 
 page. It is pretty to observe how they regulate 
 all their actions as it were by weight and measure 
 to so exact a proportion, as if the whole loss of 
 their religion depended upon the omission of the 
 Jeast punctilio. Thus they must be very critical 
 in the precise number of knots to the tying on of 
 their sandals^; what distinct colours their respec- 
 tive habits, and what stuff made of ; how broad 
 and long their girdles ; how big, and in what 
 fashion, their hoods ; whether their bald crowns 
 be to a hair's-breadth of the right cut ; how many 
 hours they must sleep, at what minute__ rise- to 
 prayers, &c. And these several customs are 
 altered according to the humours of different 
 persons and places. While they are sworn to 
 the superstitious observance of these trifles, they 
 do not only despise all others, but are very in- 
 clinable to fall out among themselves; for though 
 they make profession of an apostolic charity, yet 
 they will pick a quarrel, and be implacably pas- 
 sionate for such poor provocations, as the girting 
 on a coat the wrong way, for the wearing of 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 137 
 
 clothes a little too darkish coloured, or any such 
 nicety not worth the speaking of. Some are so 
 obstinately superstitious that they will wear their 
 upper garment of some coarse dog's hair stuff, 
 and that next their skin as soft as silk : but 
 others on the contrary will have linen frocks 
 outermost, and their shirts of wool, or hair. 
 S om e again will not toucJ i„a^^eee -of^money, 
 though they make no scruple of the sin of 
 drunkenness, and the lust of the flesh. All their 
 several orders arelnindfuloTnothing more than 
 of their being distinguished from each other by 
 their different customs and habits. They seem- 
 indeed not so careful of becoming like Christ, 
 and of being known to be his disciples, as the 
 being unlike to one another, and distinguishable 
 for followers of their several founders. A great 
 part of thejr religion consists, in their title : some 
 will be called cordeliers, and these subdivided 
 into capuchines, minors, minims, and mendicants ; 
 some again are styled Benedictines, others of the 
 order of St. Bernard, others of that of St. Bridget; 
 some are Augustin monks, some Willielmites, 
 and others Jacobists, as if the commoti name ot 
 Christian were too mean and vulgar. Most ot 
 
138 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 them place their greatest stress for salvation on 
 a strict conformity to their foppish ceremonies, 
 and a belief of their legendary traditions ; where- 
 in they fancy to have acquitted themselves with 
 so much of supererogation, that one heaven can 
 never be a condign reward for their meritorious 
 life ; little thinking that the Judge of all the earth 
 at the last day shall put them off, with a who 
 hath required these things at your hands ; and 
 call them to account only for the stewardship of 
 his legacy, which was the precept of love and 
 charity, ^at will be pretty to hear their pleas 
 before the great tribunal : one will brag how he 
 mortified his carnal appetite by feeding only 
 upon fish : another will urge that he spent most 
 of his time on earth in the divine exercise of 
 singing psalms : a third will tell how many days 
 he fasted, and what severe penance he imposed 
 on himself for the bringing his body into subjec- 
 tion : another shall produce in his own behalf as 
 many ceremonies as would load a fleet of mer- 
 chant-men : a fifth shall plead that in threescore 
 years he never so much as touched a piece of 
 money, except he fingered it through a thick 
 pair of gloves : a sixth, to testify his former 
 
Io3 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 139 
 
 humility, shall bring along with him his sacred 
 hood, so old and nasty, that any seaman had 
 rather stand bare headed on the deck, than put 
 it on to defend his ears in the sharpest storms : 
 the next that comes to answer for himself shall 
 plead, that for fifty years together, he had lived 
 like a sponge upon the same place, and was 
 content never to change his homely habitation : 
 another shall whisper softly, and tell the judge 
 he has lost his voice by a continual singing of 
 holy hymns and antliems : the next shall confess 
 how he fell into a lethargy by a strict, reserved, 
 and sedentary life : and the last shall intimate 
 that he has forgot to speak, by having always 
 kept silence, in obedience to the injunction of 
 taking heed lest he should have offended with 
 his tongue. But amidst all their fine excuses 
 our Saviour shall interrupt them with this answer. 
 Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites, 
 verily I know you not ; I left you but one pre- 
 cept, of loving one another, which I do not hear 
 any one plead he has faithfully discharged : I 
 told you plainly in my gospel, without any para- 
 ble, that my father's kingdom was prepared_not 
 for^such as. should lay claim, to Jt^ by austerities. 
 
140 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 prayers, or fastings, but for those who should 
 render themselves worthy of it by the exercise 
 of faith, and the offices of charity : I cannot own 
 such as depend on their own merits without a 
 reliance on my mercy : as many of you therefore 
 as trust to the broken reeds of your own deserts 
 may even go search out a new heaven, for you 
 shall never enter into that, which from the foun- 
 dations of the world was prepared only for such 
 as are true of heart. When these monks and 
 friars shall meet with such a shameful repulse, 
 and see that ploughmen and mechanics are ad- 
 mitted into that kingdom, from which they 
 themselves are shut out, how sneakingly will 
 they look, and how pitifully slink away ? Yet till 
 this last trial they had more comfort of a future 
 happiness, because more hopes of it than any 
 other men. And these persons are not only 
 great in their own eyes, but highly esteemed 
 and respected by others, especially those of the 
 order of mendicants, whom none dare to offer any 
 affront to, because as confessors they are intrusted 
 with all the secrets of particular intrigues, which 
 they are bound by oath not to discover ; yet many 
 times, when they are almost drunk, they cannot 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 141 
 
 keep their tongue so far within their head, as not 
 to be babbling out some hints, and shewing them- 
 selves so full, that they are in pain to be delivered. 
 If any person give them the least provocation they 
 will sure to be revenged of him, and in their next 
 public harangue give him such shrewd wipes and 
 reflections, that the whole congregation must 
 needs take notice at whom they are levelled ; 
 nor will they ever desist from this way of declaim- 
 ing, till their mouth be stopped with a bribe to 
 hold their tongue. All their preachi ng is mere 
 stage-playing, and their d elivery the very trans- 
 ports' ofriSiculeand drollery. Good Lord ! how 
 mimical are their gestures ? What heights and 
 falls in their voice ? What toning, what bawling, 
 what singing, what squeaking, what grimaces, 
 making of mouths, apes' faces, and distorting 
 of their countenance ; and this art of oratory as 
 a choice mystery, they convey down by tradition 
 to one another. The manner of it I may adven- 
 ture thus farther to enlarge upon. First, in a kind 
 of mockery they implore the divine assistance, 
 which they borrowed from the solemn custom 
 of the poets : then if their text suppose be of 
 charity, they shall take their exordium as far off 
 
142 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 as from a description of the river Nile in Egypt ; 
 or if they are to discourse of the mystery of the 
 Cross, they shall begin with a story of Bell and 
 the Dragon ; or perchance if their subject be of 
 fasting, for an entrance to their sermon they 
 shall pass through the twelve signs of the zodiac ; 
 or lastly, if they are to preach of faith, they shall 
 address themselves in a long mathematical ac- 
 count of the quadrature of the circle. I myself 
 once heard a great fool (a great scholar I would 
 have said) undertaking in a laborious discourse 
 to explain the mystery of the Holy Trinity ; in 
 the unfolding whereof, that he might shew his 
 wit and reading, and together satisfy itching 
 ears, he proceeded in a new method, as by 
 insisting on the letters, syllables, and proposition, 
 on the concord of noun and verb, and that of 
 noun substantive, and noun adjective ; the audi- 
 tors all wondered, and some mumbled to them- 
 selves that hemistitch of Horace, 
 
 Why all this needless trash ? 
 But at last he brought it thus far, that he could 
 demonstrate the whole Trinity to be represented 
 by these first rudiments of grammar, as clearly 
 and plainly as it was possible for a mathemati- 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 143 
 
 cian to draw a triangle in the sand : and for the 
 making of this grand discovery, this subtle divine 
 had plodded so hard for eight months together, 
 that he studied himself as blind as a beetle, the 
 intenseness of the eye of his understanding over- 
 shadowing and extinguishing that of his body ; 
 and yet he did not at all repent him of his blind- 
 ness, but thinks the loss of his sight an easy pur- 
 chase for the gain of glory and credit. 
 
 I heard at another time a grave divine, of 
 fourscore years of age at least, so sour and hard- 
 favoured, that one would be apt to mistrust that 
 it was Scotus Redivivus ; he taking upon him to 
 treat of the mysterious name, JESUS, did very 
 subtly pretend that in the very letters was con- 
 tained, whatever could be said of it : for first, 
 its being declined only with three cases, did ex- 
 pressly point out the trinity of persons, then that 
 the nominative ended in S, the accusative in M, 
 and the ablative in U, did imply some unspeak- 
 able mystery, viz., that in words of those initial 
 letters Christ was the summtis, or beginning, the 
 medius, or middle, and the tdtirmis, or end of all 
 things. There was yet a more abstruse riddle 
 to be explained, which was by dividing the word 
 
144 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 JESUS into two parts, and separating the S in 
 the middle from the two extreme syllables, 
 making a kind of pentameter, the word consist- 
 ing of five letters : and this intermedial S being 
 in the Hebrew alphabet called sin, which in the 
 English language signifies what the Latins term 
 peccattim, was urged to imply that the holy Jesus 
 should purify us from all sin and wickedness. 
 Thus did the pulpiteer cant, while all the con- 
 gregation, especially the brotherhood of divines, 
 were so surprised at his odd way of preaching, 
 that wonder served them, as grief did Niobe, 
 almost turned them into stones. I among the 
 rest (as Horace describes Priapus viewing the 
 enchantments of the two sorceresses, Canidia 
 and Sagane) could no longer contain, but let fly 
 a cracking report of the operation it had upon 
 me. These impertinent introductions are not 
 without reason condemned ; for of old, whenever 
 Demosthenes among the Greeks, or Tully among 
 the Latins, began their orations with so great a 
 digression from the matter in hand, it was always 
 looked upon as improper and unelegant, and 
 indeed, were such a long-fetched exordium any 
 token of a good invention, shepherds and plough- 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 145 
 
 men might lay claim to the title of men of great- 
 est parts, since upon any argument it is easiest 
 for them to talk what is least to the purpose. 
 These preachers think their preamble (as we 
 may well term it), to be the most fashionable, 
 when it is farthest from the subject they propose 
 to treat of, while each auditor sits and wonders 
 what they drive at, and many times mutters out 
 the complaint of Virgil : — 
 
 Whither does all this jargon tend? 
 
 In the third place, when they come to the divi- 
 sion of their text, they shall give only a very 
 short touch at the interpretation of the words, 
 when the fuller explication of their sense ought 
 to have been their only province. Fourthly, 
 after they are a little entered, they shall start 
 some theological queries, far enough off from 
 the matter in hand, and bandy it about pro and 
 con till they lose it in the heat of scuffle. And 
 here they shall cite their doctors invincible, 
 subtle, seraphic, cherubic, holy, irrefragable, and 
 such like great names to confirm their several 
 assertions. Then out they bring their syllogisms, 
 their majors, their minors, conclusions, corollaries, 
 suppositions, and distinctions, that will sooner 
 
146 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 terrify the congregation into an amazement, 
 than persuade them into a conviction. Now 
 comes the fifth act, in which they must exert 
 their utmost skill to come off with applause. 
 Here therefore they fall a telling some sad 
 lamentable story out of their legend, or some 
 other fabulous history, and this they descant 
 upon allegorically, tropologically, and analogi- 
 cally ; 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, and a dififerent 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 147 
 
 cadency in pronunciation, is a great advantage 
 to the setting off any thing that is spoken, they 
 will sometimes as it were mutter their words in- 
 wardly, and then of a sudden hollo them out, 
 and be sure at last, in such a flat, faltering tone 
 as if their spirits were spent, and they had run 
 themselves out of breath. Lastly, they have 
 read that most systems of rhetoric treat of the 
 art of exciting laughter ; therefore for the effect- 
 ing 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'' 
 satyrical, though their utmost spleen is so tooth- 
 less, that they suck rather than bite, tickle rather 
 than scratch or wound : nor do they ever flatter 
 more than at such times as they pretend to speak 
 with greatest freedom. ,^. 
 
 Finally, all their actions are so buffoonish and 
 mimical, 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. 
 
148 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 Yet these preachers, however ridiculous, meet 
 
 with such hearers, who admire them as much as 
 
 the people of Athens did Demosthenes, or the 
 
 citizens of Rome could do Cicero : among which 
 
 admirers are chiefly shopkeepers, and women, 
 
 whose approbation and good opinion they only 
 
 court ; because the first, if they are humgjared, 
 
 give them some snacks out of unjust gain ; and 
 
 the last come and ease their grief to them upon 
 
 all pinching occasions, especially when their 
 
 husbands are any ways cross or unkind. 
 
 Thus much I suppose may suffice to make 
 you sensible how much these cell-hermits and 
 recluses are indebted to my bounty ; who when 
 they tyrannize over the consciences of the de- 
 luded laity with fopperies, juggles, and impos- 
 tures, yet thijik theroadves ,as_eminentl^jii^us as 
 St. Paul, St. Anthony, or any other ofjhe saints ; 
 but these stage-divines, not less ungrateful dis- 
 owner¥ of their obligations to folly, than they 
 are impudent pretenders 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 
 
■ J " ■ ;" ■■ ' 
 
 
 ■■n 'U 
 
 ■^'- :^^y^^m^-:'''--^rm 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 149 
 
 notice of by me. And first, had they wisdom 
 enough to mak e a t rue judgment of things, they 
 would find their own condition to be more des- 
 picable and^ia\HsElKannffiaf 'ofthS'TEHnsriffein 
 subjects.'^^^ For"'certainly none cair~esteem per- 
 jury or parricide a cheap purchase for a crown, 
 if he does but seriously reflect on that weight_of 
 cares a pri ncely dia dem is loaded with. He that 
 sits at the helm of government acts in a public 
 capacity, and so mu st_sacrific£.alLprIvate interest 
 to the atta inment of the common g ood ; he must 
 lilmseirbe conformable, to thosejaws his prero- 
 gative exacts, or else he can expect no obedi- 
 ence paid them from others ; he must have a ^ 
 strict eye over all his inferior magistrates and 
 officers, or otherwise it is to be doubted they 
 will but carelessly .discharge their sespective 
 duties. Every king, within his own territories, 
 is placed for a shining example as it were in the 
 firmament of his wide-spread dominions, to prove 
 either a glorious star of benign influence, if his 
 behaviour be remarkably just and innocent, or 
 else to impend as a threatening comet, if his 
 blazing power be pestilent and hurtful. Subjects 
 move in a darker sphere, and so their wanderings 
 
1 50 Erasmus's praise of Folly, 
 
 and failings are less discernible ; whereas princes, 
 being fixed in a more^ exalted, orb, and encom- 
 passed with a brighter dazzling lustre, their spots 
 are more apparently visible, and their eclipses, 
 or other defects, influential on all that is inferior 
 to them. Kings are baited with so many temp- 
 tations and opportunities to vice and immorality, 
 such as are high feeding, liberty, flattery, luxury, 
 and the like, that they must stand perpetually on 
 their guard, to fence off those assaults that are 
 always ready to be made upon them. In fine, 
 abating from treachery, hatred, dangers, fear, and 
 a thousand other mischiefs impending on crowned 
 heads, however uncontrollable they are this side 
 heaven, yet after their reign here they must 
 appear before a supremer judge, and there be 
 called to an exact account for the discharge of 
 that great stewardship which was committed to 
 their trust. If princes did but seriously consider 
 (and consider they would if they were but wise) 
 these 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 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 15 i - 
 
 and pleasure, and therefore will admit none to 
 their attendance but who will divert them with 
 sport and mirth, lest they should otherwise be 
 seized and damped with the surprisal of sober 
 thoughts. They ^think they have sufiicie ntly 
 acquitted t hemselves in the duty of govern ing, if 
 they do but ride constantly a hunting, breed up 
 good TaceTiorses, 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 hooking in a larger revenue to 
 their own exchequer; for the procurement 
 whereof they will always have some pretended 
 claim and title; that though it be manifest 
 extortion, yet it may bear the show of law and 
 justice : and then they daub over their oppression 
 with a submissive, flattering carriage, that they 
 may so far insinuate into the affections of the 
 vulgar, as they may not tumult nor rebel, but 
 patiently "crouch to burdens 'and^exactions. Let 
 us feign now a person ignorant of the laws and 
 constitutions of that realm he lives in^^ an enemy 
 to the public good, studious only for his own 
 private interest, addicted wholly to pleasures 
 and' delights, a hater of ieafning7 a professed 
 
152 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 enemy to liberty and truth, careless and unmind- 
 ful" of Tiie^ornrnon concerns, taking all the mea- 
 sures 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 out- 
 shine others in all commendable qualifications ; 
 next, put into his hand a royal sceptre for a 
 symbol of justice and integrity ; lastly, clothe 
 him with purple, for an hieroglyphic of a tender 
 love and affection to the commonwealth. If a 
 prince should look upon this portraiture, and 
 draw a comparison between that and himself, 
 certainly he would be ashamed of his ensigns 
 of majesty, and be afraid of being laughed out 
 of them. 
 
 Next to kings themselves may come their 
 courtiers, who, though they are for the most part 
 a base, servile, cringing, low-spirited sort of flat- 
 terers, yet they look big, swell great, and have 
 high thoughts of their honour and grandeur. 
 Their confidence appears upon all occasions ; 
 yet in this one thing they are very modest, in 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 153 
 
 that they are content to adorn their bodies with-: 
 gold, jewels, purple, and ot her glorious ensigns 
 of virtue and wisdom, but leave their minds empty 
 and unfraught ; andri:akmg the resemBIaiTce of 
 goodness to themselves, turn over the truth and 
 reality of it to others. The y think t hemselves 
 mighty, happy in that they can call the kmg 
 master, and be allowed the familiarity of talking 
 with him; that they can volubly rehearse his 
 several titles of august highness, supereminent 
 excellence, and most serene majesty, that they 
 can boldly usher in any discourse, and that they 
 have the complete knack of insinuation and flat- 
 tery ; for these are the arts that make them truly 
 genteel and noble. If you make a stricter enquiry 
 after their other endowments, you shall find them 
 mere sots and dolts. They will sleep generally 
 till noon, and then their mercenary chaplains 
 shall come to their bed-side, and entertain them 
 perhaps with a short morning prayer. As soon 
 as they are drest they must go to breakfast, and 
 when that is done, immediately to dinner. When 
 the cloth is taken away, then to cards, dice, tables, 
 or some such like diversion. After this they must 
 have one or two afternoon banquets, and so in 
 
1 54 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 the evening to supper. When they have supped 
 then begins the game of drinking ; the bottles 
 are marshalled, the glasses ranked, and round 
 go the healths and bumpers till they are carried 
 to bed. And this is the constant method of 
 passing away their hours, days, months, years, 
 and ages. I have many times took great satis- 
 faction by standing in the court, and seeing how 
 the tawdry butterflies vie upon one another : 
 the ladies shall measure the height of their 
 humours by the length of their trails, which 
 must be borne up by a page behind. The 
 nobles justle one another to get nearest to the 
 king's elbow, and wear gold <^-ins of that 
 weight and bigness as require no less strength 
 to carry than they do wealth to purchase. 
 
 And now for some reflections upon popes, 
 cardinals, and bishops, who in pomp and splen- 
 dour have almost equalled if not outgone secular 
 princes. Now if any one consider that their 
 upper crotchet of white linen is to signify their 
 unspotted purity and innocence; 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 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 155 
 
 wearing gloves, represents their keeping their 
 hands clean and undefiled from lucre and cove- 
 tousness ; that the pastoral staff implies the care 
 of a flock committed to their charge; that^Ke 
 cross carried before them expresses their victory- 
 over all carnal affections ; he (I say) that consi- 
 ders this, and much more of the like nature, 
 must needs conclude they are ent rusted with a 
 very weighty and difficult o ffice. But alas, they 
 think it sufficient if they ca n but feed themselv es ; 
 and as 'to their flock, either commend them to 
 
 the care of Christ himself, or commit them to 
 the guidance of some infeflof vtcars artdrm^tes ; 
 not so much as remembering what their name 
 of bishop imports, to wit, labour, pains, and dili- 
 gence, but by base simoniacal contracts, they are 
 in a prnfanf^ sepse Ephr.npj jp.,^ ,,pyerseer s of 
 their own gain and income. 
 
 So cardinals, in like manner, if they did but 
 consider that the church supposes them to suc- 
 ceed in the room of the apostles ; that therefore 
 they must behave themselves as their predeces- 
 sors, and so not be lords, but dispensers of spi- 
 ritual gifts, of the disposal whereof they must 
 one day render a strict account : or if they would 
 
156 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 dif- 
 fusive charity, that should spread itself for a suc- 
 cour and protection to all, by teaching, 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 suc- 
 cessors 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 created_to_this honour, they 
 would wiTImgiy resign it when conferred upon 
 them, or at least would be as industrious, watch- 
 ful and laborious, as the primitive apostles were. 
 Now as to the popes of Rome, who pretend 
 themselves Christ's vicars, if they would but imi- 
 
J54 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 157 
 
 tate his exemplary life, in the being employed in 
 an unintermitted course of preaching ; in the 
 being attended with poverty, nakedness, 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 secure 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 wis- 
 dom ? Wisdom, did I say ? Nay, with one 
 grain of that salt which our Saviour bid them 
 not lose the savour of,^ All their riches, all their 
 honour, their jurisdictions, their Peter's patri- 
 mony, their offices, their dispensations, their 
 licences, their» indulgences, their long train and 
 attendants (see in how short a compass I have 
 abbreviated all their marketing of religion) ; in a 
 word, all their perquisites would be forfeited and 
 
158 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 deplorable, 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 splendour to the poor equipage of a scrip 
 and staff. But all this is upon the supposition 
 only that they understood what 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 gran- 
 deur, that they assume to themselves, as being 
 hereunto called : so that by my influence no 
 
Erasuvs's praise of Folly. 159 
 
 sort of people live more to their own ease and 
 content. They think to satisfy that Master 
 they pretend to serve, our Lord and Saviour, 
 with their great state and magnificence, with 
 the ceremonies of instalments, 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 
 intreated, will scarce give princes the honour 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 ex- 
 communications, and their roaring bulls, that 
 fright whomever they are thundered against ; 
 and these most holy fathers never issue them 
 
i6o Erasmus's praise of Folly, 
 
 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 Saviour 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 gos- 
 pel by their forced interpretations, and under- 
 mining traditions ; and lastly, by their lusts and 
 wickedness grieve the Holy Spirit, and make 
 their Saviour's wounds to bleed anew. Farther, 
 when the Christian church has been all along 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. i6i 
 
 first planted, then confirmed, and since estab- 
 lished by L.-^ lood 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 
 violen ce, which was wont formerly to be done 
 only with patience and sufferings. 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 
 maugre all this, peace is too quiet, too inactive, 
 and they must be engaged in the boisterousness 
 of war. Among which undertaking popes, you 
 shall have some 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 inconvenience, 
 so they may involve laws, religion, peace, and 
 all other concerns, whether sacred or civil, in un- 
 appeasable tumults and distractions. And yet 
 some of their learned fawning courtiers will 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 interpret this notorious madness^for .zeal, and 
 
 piety, and foxtitude, 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 duty of the second table, whereby we are 
 
 obliged to love our neighbours as ourselves. It 
 
 is yet uncertain whether these Romish fathers 
 
 have taken example from, or given precedent to, 
 
 such other 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 Lord. «^ 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 any- 
 
 u thing that came next to hand. When they read 
 
 the rabbies, fathers, 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 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. i6 
 
 o 
 
 in the same authors that minds them of the duty 
 and difficulty of tlieir own office. They never 
 consider that their shaven crown is a token that 
 they^ should pare off and cut away all the super- 
 fluous lusts of this world, and j;ive themselves 
 wholty^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 sofdy, and in so unknown a language, 
 which they can sceirce hear or understand them- 
 selves. 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, per- 
 quisites, &c. 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 minis- 
 ters 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, 
 
164 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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, think, 
 ing 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 men- 
 dicants ; they lay it upon the Carthusians, which 
 order alone keeps honesty and piety among 
 them, but really keep them so close that no 
 body ever yet could see them. Thus the Popes 
 
 f-~ --- ^ — " * 
 
 thrusting only 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 pastorsontheifcurates, 
 and the curates commit it to the mendicants, 
 who return it again to such as welPknowTiow 
 to make good advantage of the flock, by 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 panegyric : nor let anyone 
 imagine that I reflect on good princes, by com- 
 
J62 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 165 
 
 mending of bad ones : I did this only in brief, 
 to shew that there is no one particular person 
 can lead a comfortable life, except he be entered 
 of my society, and retain me for his friend. 
 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 pro- 
 fusely liberal and lavish to fools. Thus Timo- 
 theus, the Athenian commander, in all his expedi- 
 tions, was a mirror of good luck, because he was 
 a little underwitted ; from him was occasioned 
 the Grecian proverb, 'H evSoi'Tos Kvpro? ctipet, 
 TAe net fills, tkotigh the fisherman sleeps ; there is 
 also another favourable proverb, yXav^ iTrrarat, 
 The owl flies, an omen of success. But against 
 wise men are pointed these ill-aboding proverbs, 
 'Ez' TCT/oaSt y€vvri6ivTa<i, Born tender 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, for- 
 tune we find still favouring the blunt, and flush- 
 
1 66 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 ing the forward ; strokes and smoothes up fools, 
 crowning all their undertakings with success; 
 but wisdom makes her followers bashful, sneak- 
 ing, 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 
 command. If any one think it happy to be a 
 favourite at court, and to manage the disposal 
 of places and preferments, alas, this happiness 
 is so far from being attainable by 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 ecclesiastical dignity ? Why, an ass, or a 
 plough-jobber, shall sooner gain it than a wise 
 man. Again, are you in love with any handsome 
 lady ? Alas, women-kind are so addicted to 
 folly, that they will not at all listen to the court- 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 167 
 
 ship of a wise suitor. Finally, wherever there 
 is any preparation made for mirth and jollity, 
 all wise men are sure to be excluded the com- 
 pany, lest they should stint the joy, and damp 
 the frolic. In a word, to what side soever we 
 turn ourselves, to popes, princes, judges, magis- 
 trates, 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 at them. 
 
 But now, though my praise and commendation 
 might well be endless, yet it is requisite I should 
 put some period 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 pre- 
 cedents nor allegations. To imitate them there- 
 fore I will produce some reports and authorities, 
 though perhaps like theirs too, they are nothing 
 to the purpose. 
 
 First then, it is confessed almost to a proverb, 
 
1 68 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 that the art of dissembling is a very necessary 
 accomplishment ; 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 collect 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-skinri d corpse as smooth as if I lie 
 'Mong th' fatted swine of Epicurus' s sty. 
 
 This poet (I say) gives this advice in one of his 
 
 odes : — 
 
 Short Folly with your counsels fnix. 
 
 The epithet of short, it is true, is a little im- 
 proper. The same poet again has this passage 
 elsewhere : — 
 
 Well-timed Folly has a sweet relish. 
 And in another place : — ■ 
 
 Fd 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 Nt^itios, Silly : and the Grecians generally use 
 
yeff 
 
 ■^-^>>L^^ ^^mNW _^;^-Sv _\ 
 
 ^ 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 169 
 
 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 ? 
 How positive also is Tully's commendation that 
 all places are filled with fools ? Now every 
 excellence being to be measured by its extent, 
 the goodness of folly must be of as large com- 
 pass as those universal places she reaches to. 
 But perhaps christians may slight the authority 
 of a heathen. I could therefore, if I pleased, 
 back and confirm the truth hereof by the cita- 
 tions of several texts of scripture ; though herein 
 It were perhaps my duty to beg leave of the 
 divines, that I might so far intrench upon their 
 prerogative. Supposing a grant, the task seems 
 so difficult as to require the invocation of some 
 aid and assistance ; yet because it is unreason- 
 able to put the muses to the trouble and expense 
 of so tedious a journey, especially since the busi- 
 ness 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 
 
lyo Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 and prickly soul, which I would not care how 
 afterwards it returned to his body, though for 
 refinement it were stopped at a purgatory 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 fol- 
 lowing discourse. Yet however, it may not seem 
 strange, that after so long and frequent a con- 
 verse, I have gleaned some scraps from the 
 divines ; since Horace's wooden god by hearing 
 his master read Homer, learned some words 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 ever any one 
 had yet the happiness to see ? 
 
J6S 
 
 
 ^^'yytn." ^/>n~.'^- 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. lyi 
 
 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 brzitish 
 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 delivered 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 mun 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 man- 
 kind, and by Sun that fountain of all light, the 
 Almighty. The same sense is implied in that 
 
172 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 saying of our Saviour in the gospel, There is none 
 good but one, that is God: for if whoever is not 
 wise must be consequently a fool, and if, accord- 
 ing to the Stoics, every man be wise so far 
 only as he is good, the meaning of the text must 
 be, all mortals are unavoidably fools ; 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 desti- 
 tute 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 sariie preacher in the seventh chapter of the 
 same book. That the heart of the wise is in the 
 house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in 
 the house of mirth. This author himself had 
 never attained to such a portion of wisdom, if 
 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, / gave my heart to 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. i 73 
 
 know wisdom, and to know madness and folly ; 
 where it is worthy to be observed that as to the 
 order of words, Folly for its advantage 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, accor- 
 ding to the tenor of that evangelical precept. 
 The last shall be first, and the first shall be last. 
 And in Ecclesiasticus likewise (whoever was 
 author of the holy book which bears that name) 
 in the forty-fourth chapter, the excellency of 
 folly above wisdom is positively acknowledged ; 
 the very words I shall not cite, till I have the 
 advantage of an answer to a question I am pro- 
 posing, 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 ah answer ? Since you 
 are so shy and reserved, I'll take the Greek pro- 
 verb for a satisfactory reply ; namely, ttjv hrX 6v- 
 paL<5 vBpCav, Foul water is thrown down the sink; 
 
1 74 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 other: 
 as take him now in his own words, Better is he 
 that hideth his folly than him that hideth his 
 wisdom. Beside, the sacred text does 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 censures to have less wit than 
 himself : for so I understand that passage in the 
 
,llllllllllllllUllllllllMlllllllllllllll|lll||IIHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIillfllllllllllllMIIIII 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. i 75 
 
 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 candour 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 scanda- 
 lous 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 tinder standing of a man. 
 Nay, St. Paul himself, that great doctor of the 
 Gentiles, 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 mis-interpreting this text by some 
 modern annotators, who like crows pecking at 
 one another's eyes, find fault, and correct all 
 that went before them, pretend each their own 
 glosses to 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 impertinent ; the 
 
176 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 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 than the rest, but only when he had 
 before said, Are they ministers of Christ ? so am 
 I : as if the equalling 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. / 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 de- 
 termine. 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 mind the late 
 critics any more than the senseless chattering of 
 a daw ; especially since one of the most eminent 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 177 
 
 of them (whose name I advisedly conceal, lest 
 some of our wits should be taunting him with 
 the Greek proverb, *Oi/o5 tt^os \vpa.v, ad lyram 
 asimis) magisterially and dogmatically descant- 
 ing upon his text \are they the ministers of 
 Christ ? (I speak as a fool) 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 formally his sense 
 (for that's one of their babbling distinctions), 
 [I speak as afoof] that is, if the equalling myself 
 to those false apostles would have been con- 
 strued as the vaunt of a fool, I will willingly be 
 accounted a greater fool, by taking place of 
 them, and openly pleading, that as to their 
 ministry, I not only come up even with them, 
 but outstrip and go beyond them : though this 
 same commentator a little after, as it were for- 
 getting what he had just before delivered, tacks 
 about and shifts to another interpretation. 
 
 But why do I insist upon any one particular 
 example, when in general it.iaihfi. public charter 
 of all divines, to mould and bend the sacred 
 
 N 
 
lyS Erasmus's praise of Foily. 
 
 oracles till they comply jsdth their own fancy, 
 spreading them (as Heaven by its Creator) 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 dif- 
 ferent sense from what they were first intended, 
 for, 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 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 of Asia, Europe, and Africa, 
 io all foreign and tmknown 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 purpose; though 
 from the coherence of what went before, or fol- 
 lows after, the genuine meaning appears to be^ 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 179 
 
 either wide enough, or perhaps quite contradic- 
 tory to what they would thrust and impose upon 
 it. In which knack the divines are grown now 
 so expert, that the lawyers themselves begin to 
 be jealous of an encroachment 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. Luke put an interpretation, 
 no more agreeable to the meaning of the place, 
 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 
 requisite that all the disciples should be provided 
 to guard and secure their assaulted master, our 
 Saviour, that he might piously caution them 
 against reliance for his delivery 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 defend their feet from the injuries of flints 
 and thorns, or a scrip to carry a meal's meat in ; 
 
i8o Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 and when they had answered that they lacked 
 nothing, he adds, But new 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 
 Saviour inculcates nothing more frequently than 
 meekness, patience, and a contempt of this world, 
 is it not plain what the meaning of the place is ? 
 Namely, that he might now dismiss his ambas- 
 sadors 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 highwaymen 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 affec- 
 tions, and leaving nothing in possession of our 
 breast but piety, zeal, and devotion : this (I say) 
 in my opinion is the most natural interpretation. 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. i8i 
 
 But see how that divine misunderstands the 
 place; by sword (says he) is meant, defence 
 against persecution ; by scrip, or purse, a suffi- 
 cient 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 forgot 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 forgot that he encouraged 
 them by the examples of sparrows and lilies to 
 take no 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 unarmed. 
 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 requires. 
 
1 82 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 Thus does this provident commentator fur- 
 nish out the disciples with halberts, spears, and 
 guns, for the enterprise of preaching Christ cru- 
 cified ; he suppHes 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 Saviour 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 other- 
 wise 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 commenting upon that verse in 
 the prophet Habakkuk (/ saw the tents of 
 Cushan in affliction, and the curtains of the land 
 of Midian did tremble), because tents were 
 sometimes made of skins, he pretended that the 
 word tents did here signify the skin of St. Bar- 
 tholomew, who was flayed for a martyr. 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 183 
 
 I myself was lately at a divinity disputation 
 (where I very often pay my attendance), where 
 one of the opponents demanded a reason why it 
 should be thought more proper to silence all 
 heretics by sword and faggot, rather than con- 
 vert them by moderate and sober arguments ? 
 A certain cynical old blade, who bore the cha- 
 racter of a divine, legible in the frowns and 
 wrinkles of his face, not without a great deal of 
 disdain answered, that it was the express injunc- 
 tion of St. Paul himself, in those directions 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 applicable to his purpose ; he 
 at last explained himself, saying, that devita sig- 
 nified de vita tollendum heretictim, a heretic 
 must be slain. Some smiled at his ignorance, 
 but others approved of it as an orthodox com- 
 ment. And however some disliked that such 
 violence should be done to so easy a text, our 
 hair-splitting and irrefragable doctor went on in 
 triumph. To prove it yet (says he) more unde- 
 niably, it is commanded in the old law [ Thott 
 
184 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 shalt not suffer a witch to live] : now then every 
 Maleficus, or witch, is to be killed, but an here- 
 tic 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 other- 
 wise, if the word Maleficus signified what it most 
 naturally implies, every evil-doer, then drun- 
 kenness and whoredom were to meet with the 
 same capital punishment as witchcraft. 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 allow- 
 ance for any slips or mistakes. 
 
 Now therefore I return to St. Paul, who uses 
 these expressions \Ye suffer fools gladly\ apply- 
 ing it to himself ; and again \_As a fool receive 
 7ne\, and [ That which I speak, I speak not after 
 the Lord, but as it were foolishly] ; and in ano- 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 185 
 
 ther place \We are fools for Christ's 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 \If any 
 man seem to be wise in this world, let him become 
 a fool, that he may be wise\. Thus St. Luke 
 records, how our Saviour, after his resurrection, 
 joining himself with two of his disciples travel- 
 ling to Emmaus, at his first salutation he calls 
 them fools, saying \0 fools, and slow of heart to 
 believe\. Nor may this seem strange in compa- 
 rison to what is yet farther delivered by St. 
 Paul, who adventures to attribute something of 
 Folly even to the all-wise God himself \The 
 foolishness of God (says he) is wiser than men\ ; 
 in which text St. Origen would not have the 
 word foolishness any way 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, fool- 
 ishness\. But why do I put myself to the trou- 
 ble of citing so many proofs, since this one may 
 suffice for all, namely, that in those mystical 
 
1 86 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 psalms wherein David represents the type of 
 Christ, it is there acknowledged by our Saviour, 
 in way of confession, that even he himself was 
 guilty of Folly ; Thou (says he) O God knowest 
 my foolishness ? 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 a jealous 
 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, thinking himself secure enough from the 
 careless drinking Anthony ; Nero likewise mis- 
 trusted 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 Saviour- in like man- 
 ner dislikes and condemns the wise and crafty, 
 as St. Paul does expressly declare 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 him- 
 self testifies as much when he speaks by the 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 187 
 
 mouth of his prophet, I will destroy the wisdom 
 of the wise, and bring to nought the understand- 
 ing of the learned. Again, our Saviour does 
 solemnly return his Father thanks for that he 
 had hidden the mysteries of salvation from the 
 wise, and revealed them, to babes, i.e., to fools ; 
 for the original word vTjmou's, being opposed to 
 <To<f)ols, if one signify wise, the other must fool- 
 ish. 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 unlearned mul- 
 titude : for what otherwise can be the meaning 
 of that tart denunciation. Woe unto you scribes 
 and Pharisees, than woe unto you wise men, 
 whereas he seems chiefly delighted with chil- 
 dren, women, and illiterate fishermen. 
 
 We may farther take notice, that among all 
 the several kinds of brute creatures he shews 
 greatest liking to such as are farthest distant 
 from the subtlety of the fox. Thus in his pro- 
 gress 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 
 
1 88 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 rather likewise to descend from heaven in the 
 shape of a simple gall-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 creatures, such as stags, hinds, 
 lambs, and the like. Nay, those blessed souls 
 that in the day of judgment are to be placed at 
 our Saviour's right hand are called sheep, which 
 are the most senseless and stupid of all cattle, 
 as is evidenced by Aristotle's Greek proverb, 
 irpo^aTcov rfOo^, a sheepishness of temper, i.e., 
 a dull, blockish, sleepy, unmanly humour. Yet 
 of such a flock Christ is not ashamed 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 Baptist seeth Jesus coming unto him, 
 he saith, Behold the Lamb of God ; which same 
 title is very often given to our Saviour in the 
 apocalypse. 
 
 All this amounts to no less than that all 
 mortal men are fpp.ls, even the righteous and 
 godly as well as sinners ; nay, in some sense our 
 blessed Lord himself, who, although he was the 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 189 
 
 wisdom of the Father, yet to repair the infir- 
 mities of fallen man, he became in some measure 
 a partaker of human Folly, when he took our 
 nature upon him, and was fotmd in fashion as a 
 man ; or when God made him to be sin for us, 
 who knew no sin, that we m,ight be made the 
 righteousness of God in him. Nor would he 
 heal those breaches our sins had made by any 
 other method than by \!a.& foolishness of the cross, 
 published by the ignorant and unlearned apos- 
 tles, to whom he frequently recommends the 
 excellence of Folly, cautioning them against the 
 infectiousness of wisdom, by the several exam- 
 ples he proposes them to imitate, such as chil- 
 dren, lilies, sparrows, mustard, and such like 
 beings, which are either wholly inanimate, or at 
 least devoid of reason and ingenuity, guided by 
 no other conduct than that of instinct, without 
 care, trouble, or contrivance. 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 answer, nor what they shoiild 
 say : they were again strictly forbid to enquire 
 
igo Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 into the times and seasons, or to place any confi- 
 dence 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 refrain from eating of the tree of know- 
 ledge except he had thereby forewarned that the 
 taste of knowledge would be the bane of all 
 happiness. St. Paul says expressly, that know- 
 ledge puffeth up, i.e., it is fatal and poisonous. In 
 pursuance whereunto St. Bernard interprets that 
 exceeding high mountain whereon the devil had 
 erected his seat to have been the mountain of 
 knowledge. And perhaps this may be another 
 argument which ought not to be omitted, namely, 
 that Folly is acceptable, at least excusable, with 
 the gods, inasmuch, as they easily pass by the 
 heedless failures of fools, 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 le- 
 prosy of his sister Miriam, saying, alas, my Lord, 
 
733 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 191 
 
 / beseech tJicc lay not the sin upon us, wherein we 
 have done foolishly. Thus, when David spared 
 Saul's h"fe, 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. David 
 also himself in much the same form begs the re- 
 mission 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 Saviour is yet more 
 convincing, 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 wJtat 
 they do. To the same effect St. Paul in his first 
 episde to Timothy acknowledges he had been a 
 blasphemer and a persecutor. But (saith he) / 
 obtained mercy, because T did it igiiorautly in un- 
 belief. Now what is the meaning of the phrase 
 [/ did it igtwrantly'] but only this ? My fault 
 
192 Erasmus's /;'«W5 ^ Folly, 
 
 was occasioned from a misinformed Folly, not 
 from a deliberate malice. What signifies [/ 
 obtained mercy] but only that I should not other- 
 wise have obtained it had not folly and ignorance 
 been my vindication ? To the same purpose is 
 that other passage in the mysterious 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 attendants : and secondly, 
 his ignorances, expressed in the plural number 
 for an enhancement and aggravation of his fool- 
 ishness. 
 
 \) But that I may not wear out this subject too 
 far, to draw now towards a conclusion, it is 
 observable that the christian religfion seems to 
 have some relation to Folly, and no alliance at 
 all with wisdom. Of the truth Avhereof, 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 ^Iways most constant in 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 193 
 
 repairing to church, and most zealous, devout 
 and attent ive in the performance of the several 
 parts o f divine serv ice ; nay, the first~promul- 
 gators of the gospel, and the first converts to 
 Christianity, were men of plainness and simpli- 
 ^^, wholly unacquainted with secular policy or 
 learning. ^.^ 
 
 Farther, there are nong_jiiQ]:e,siILy, or nearer 
 their wits' end, than tfiose who^e Joosupersti- 
 tiously religious : they are profusely lavish in 
 their charity ; they invite fresh affronts by an 
 easy forgiveness of past injuries ; 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, sor- 
 row 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 
 
 o 
 
194 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 can we imagine all this to be than downright 
 madness ? It is the less strange therefore that 
 at the feast of Pentecost the apostles should 
 be thought drunk with 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 forwarder, 
 and be so bold as to say thus much more : all 
 that final happiness, which christians, through 
 so many rubs'~andn)riars of difficul ties, contend 
 for, is at last no better than a sort of folly and 
 madness. This, no question, will be thought 
 extravagantly spoke ; but consider awhile, and 
 deliberately state the case. 
 
 First, then, the christians so far agree with 
 the Platonists as to believe that the body is no 
 better than a prison or dungeon for the con- 
 finement of the soul. That therefore, while the 
 soul is shackled to the walls of flesh, her soaring 
 wings are impeded, and all her enlivening facul- 
 ties clogged and fettered by the gross particles 
 of matter, so that she can neither freely range 
 after, nor, when happily overtook, can quietly 
 contemplate her proper object of truth. 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 195 
 
 Farther, Plato defines philosophy to be the 
 meditation of death, because the one performs 
 the same office with the other ; namely, with- 
 draws the mind from all visible and corporeal 
 objects ; therefore while the soul does patiently 
 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 confinement, struggles to break jail, and fly 
 beyond her cage of flesh and blood, then a^ man 
 is censured at least for being magotty atid crack- 
 brained j. nay, if there be any defect in the exter- 
 nal organs it is then termed downright madness. 
 And yet many times persons thus affected shall 
 have prophetic ecstacies of foretelling things to 
 come, shall in a rapture talk languages they never 
 before learned, and seem in all things actuated by 
 somewhat divine and extraordinary ; 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 
 question, has sprung an observation of like 
 nature, confirmed now into a settled opinion, 
 that some long experienced souls in the world, 
 
196 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 before their dislodging, arrive to the height of 
 prophetic spirits. 
 
 If this disorder arise from an intemperance in 
 religion, and too high a strain of devotion, though ■ 
 it be of a somewhat 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 humour are so prag- 
 matical 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 
 abstracted speculations 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 ima- 
 gination reached only in shadow ; that therefore 
 he could not but pity and condole their deluding 
 dreams, while they on the other ■ side no less 
 bewail his frenzy, and turn him out of their 
 society for. a lunatic and madman. 
 ^ Thus the vulgar are wholly taken up with 
 those objects that are most familiar to their 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 197 
 
 senses, beyond which they are apt to think all is 
 but fairy-land ; while those that are devoutly re- 
 ligious scorn to set their thoughts or affections on 
 any things below, but mount their soul to the pur- 
 suit of incorporeal and invisible beings. The for- 
 mer, in their marshalling the requisites of happi- 
 ness, place riches in the front, the endowments of 
 the body in the next rank, and leave the accom- 
 plishments of the soul to bring up the rear ; nay, 
 some will scarce believe there is any such thing 
 at all as the soul, because they cannot literally 
 see a reason of their faith ; while the other pay 
 their first fruits of service to that most simple 
 and incomprehensible Being, God, employ them- 
 selves next in providing for the happiness of that 
 which comes nearest to their immortal soul, 
 being not at all mindful of their corrupt bodily 
 carcases, and slighting money as the dirt and 
 rubbish of the world; or if at any time some 
 urging occasions require them to become entan- 
 gled in secular affairs, they do it with regret, and 
 a kind of ill-will, observing what St. Paul advises 
 his Corinthians, having wives, and yet being as 
 though they had none ; buying, and yet remainhig 
 as though they possessed not. 
 
rgS Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 There are between these two sorts of persons 
 many differences in several other respects. As 
 first, though all the senses have the same mutual 
 relation to the body, yet some are more gross 
 than others ; as those five corporeal ones, of 
 touching, hearing, smelling, seeing, tasting, 
 whereas some again are more refined, and less 
 adulterated with matter ; such are the memory, 
 the understanding, and the will. Now the mind 
 will be always most ready and expedite at that 
 to which it is naturally most inclined. Hence is 
 it that a pious soul, emjpjoying^all its power and 
 abilities in the pressing after such things as are 
 farthest removed from sense, is perfectly stupid 
 and brutish in the management of any worldly 
 affairs ; while on the other side, the vulgar are 
 so intent upon their business and employment, 
 that they have not time to bestow one poor 
 thought upon a future eternity. From such 
 ardour of divine meditation was it that Saint 
 Bernard in his study drank oil instead of wine, 
 and yet his thoughts were so taken up that he 
 never observed the mistake. 
 
 Farther, among the passions of the soul, some 
 have a greater communication with the body 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 199 
 
 than others; as lust^ the desiVe of mpaf- anri 
 sleep, anger, pride, and envy; -with, these the 
 pious man is in continual war, and irreconcile- 
 able enrhityTwhile the vulgar cherish and foment 
 them as the best comforts of life. 
 
 There are other affections of a middle nature, 
 common and innate to every man ; such are love 
 to one's country, duty to parents, love to children, 
 kindness to friends, and such like ; to these the 
 vulgar pay some respect, but the religious endea" 
 vour to supplant-ani eradicate -from their soul, 
 except they can raise and sublimate them to the 
 most refined pitch of virtue ; so as to love or 
 honour their parents, not barely under that cha- 
 racter (for what did they do more than generate 
 a body ? nay, even for that we are primarily be- 
 holden to God, the first parent of all mankind), 
 but as good men only, upon whom is imprinted 
 the lively image of that divine nature, which they 
 esteem as the chief and only good, beyond whom 
 nothing deserves to be beloved, nothing desired. 
 
 By the same rule they measure all the other 
 offices or duties of life ; in each of which, what- 
 ever is earthly and corporeal, shall, if not wholly 
 rejected, yet at least be put behind what faith 
 
200 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 makes the substance of things not seen. Thus in 
 the sacraments, an^._3JL other acte of religion, 
 they make a difference between the outward ap- 
 pearance or body of them, and the more inward 
 soul or spirit. As to instance, in fasting, they 
 think it very ineffectual to abstain from flesh, oir 
 debar themselves of a meal's meat (which yet is 
 all the vulgar understand, by his duty), unless 
 they likewise restrain their passions, subdue their 
 anger, and mortify their pride ; that the soul 
 being thus disengaged from the entanglement of 
 the body, may have a better relish to spiritual 
 objects, and take an antepast of heaven. Thus 
 (say they) in the holy Eucharist, though the out- 
 ward form and ceremonies are not wholly to be 
 despised, yet are these prejudicial, at least un- 
 profitable, if as bare signs only they are not ac- 
 companied with the thing signified, which is the 
 body and blood of Christ, whose death, till his 
 second coming, we are hereby to represent by 
 the vanquishing and burying our vile affections 
 that they may arise to a newness of life, and be 
 united first to each other, then all to Christ. 
 
 These are the actions and meditations of the 
 truly pious person : while, the vulgar place all 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 201 
 
 their religionjn^rowding up close to the altar, 
 in listening to the words of the priest, and in 
 being very circumspect at the observance of each 
 trifling ceremony. Nor is it in such cases only 
 as we have here given for instances, but through 
 his whole course of life, that the pious man, with- 
 out any regard-to the. baser materials of the body, 
 spends himself wholly in a fixed intentness upon 
 spiritual, invisible, and^ eternal objects. 
 
 Now since these persons stand off, and keep 
 at so wide a distance between themselves, it is 
 customary for them both to think each other 
 mad : and were I to give my opinion to which 
 of the two the name does most properly belong, 
 I should, I confess, adjudge it^tojthe religious; 
 of the reasonableness whereof you may be farther 
 convinced if I proceed to demonstrate what I 
 formerly hinted at, namely, that that ultimate 
 happiness which religion proposes is"no~o^ther 
 than somelort of madness." 
 
 First, therefore, Plato dreamed somewhat of 
 this nature when he tells us that the madness of 
 lovers was of all other dispositions of the body 
 most desirable ; for he who is once thoroughly 
 smitten with this passion, lives no longer within 
 
202 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 himself, but has removed his soul to the same 
 place where he has settled his affections, and 
 loses himself to find the object he so much dotes 
 upon : this straying now, and wandering of a 
 soul from its own mansion, what is it better than 
 a plain transport of madness ? What else can 
 be the meaning of those proverbial phrases, non 
 est aptid se, he is not himself; ad te redi, recover 
 yourself ; and sibi reddihis est, he is come again 
 to himself ? And accordingly as love is more 
 hot and eager, so is the madness thence ensuing 
 more incurable, and yet more happy. Now what 
 shall be that future happiness of glorified saints, 
 which pious souls here on earth so earnestly 
 groan for, but only that the spirit, as the more 
 potent and prevalent victor, shall over-master 
 and swallow up the body; and that the more 
 easily, because while here below, the several 
 members, by being mortified, and kept in sub- 
 jection, were the better prepared for this separa- 
 ting change ; and afterward the spirit itself shall 
 be lost, and drowned in the abyss of beatific 
 vision, so as the whole man will be then per- 
 fectly beyond all its own bounds, and be no 
 otherwise happy than as transported into ecstasy 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 203 
 
 and wonder, it feels some unspeakable Influence 
 from that omnipotent Being, which makes all 
 things completely blessed, by assimilating them 
 to his own likeness. Now although this happi- 
 ness be then only consummated, when souls at 
 the general resurrection shall be re-united to 
 their bodies, and both be clothed with immorta- 
 lity ; yet because a religious life is but a con- 
 tinued meditation upon, and as it were a trans- 
 cript of the joys of heaven, therefore to such 
 persons there is allowed some relish and fore- 
 taste of that pleasure here, which is to be their 
 reward hereafter. And although this indeed be 
 but a small pittance of satisfaction compared with 
 that future inexhaustible fountain of blessedness, 
 yet does it abundantly over-balance all worldly 
 delights, were they all in conjunction set off to 
 their best advantage ; so great is the precedency 
 of spiritual things before corporeal, of invisible 
 before material and visible. This is what the 
 apostle gives an eloquent description of, where 
 he says by way of encouragement, that eye hath 
 not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into 
 the heart of inan to conceive those things which 
 God hath prepared for them that love him. 
 
204 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 This likewise is that better part which Mary- 
 chose, which shall not be taken from her, but 
 perfected and completed by her mortal putting 
 on immortality. 
 
 Now those who are thus devoutly affected 
 (though few there are so), undergo somewhat of 
 strange alteration, which very nearly approaches 
 to madness ; they speak~many' things" at an 
 abrupt a»d incoherent rate, as if they were ac- 
 tuated by some possessing demon ; they make 
 an inarticulate noise, without any distinguishable 
 sense or meaning ; they sometimes screw and 
 distort their faces to uncouth and antic looks ; 
 at one time beyond measure cheerful, then as 
 immoderately sullen ; now sobbing, then laugh- 
 ing, and soon after sighing, as if they were per- 
 fectly distracted, and out of their senses. If 
 they have any sober intervals of coming to 
 themselves again, like St. Paul they then con- 
 fess, that they were caught up they know not 
 where, whether in the body, or out of the body, 
 they cannot tell ; as if they had been in a dead 
 sleep or trance, they remember nothing of what 
 they have heard, seen, said, or done : this they 
 only know, that their past delusion was a most 
 
-/^<r. :ijf e. 
 
Erasmus's praise of Folly. 205 
 
 ^^^^i'^^^A^, happiness ; that therefore they bewail 
 nothing more than the loss of it, nor wish for 
 any greater joy than the quick return of it, and 
 more durable abode for ever. And this (as I 
 have said) is the foretaste or anticipation of 
 future blessedness. 
 
 But I doubt I have forgot myself, and have 
 already transgressed the bounds of modesty. 
 However, if I have said anything too confidently 
 or impertinently, be pleased to consider that it 
 was spoke by Folly, and that under the person 
 of a woman ; yet at the same time remembec the 
 applicableness of that Greek proverb : — 
 
 A fool oft speaks a seasonable truth : 
 
 Unless you will be so witty as to object that this 
 makes no apology for me, because the word 
 av^p signifies a man, not a woman, and conse- 
 quently my sex debars me from the benefit of 
 that observation. 
 
 I perceive now, that, for a concluding treat, 
 you expect a formal epilogue, and the summing 
 up of all in a brief recitation ; but I will assure 
 you, you are grossly mistaken if you suppose 
 that after such a hodge-podge medley of speech 
 
2o6 Erasmus's praise of Folly. 
 
 I should be able to recollect anything I have 
 delivered. Beside, as it is an old proverb, /iiaw 
 jjivajjiovav tru/ATTorav : / ^aie a pot-companion 
 with a good memory ; so indeed I may as truly 
 say, /Aicrw ^.vayiovav aKpoaTtjv : I hate a hearer 
 that will carry any thing away with him. 
 Wherefore, in short : — 
 
 Farewell! live long, drink deep, be jolly, 
 Ye most illustrious votaries of folly ! 
 
A POEM on the foregoing WORK. 
 
 'pHERE'S ne'er a blade of honour in the town, 
 
 But if you chance to term him fool and clown. 
 Straight satisfaction cries, and then with speed 
 The time, the place, and rapier's length's decreed. 
 Prodigious fops, I'll swear, which can't agree 
 To be call'd what's their happiness to be : 
 
 Blest Idiots ! 
 That in an humble sphere securely move, 
 And there the sweets of a safe dulness prove. 
 Nor envy the proud heights of those who range above. 
 Folly, sure friend of a misguided will. 
 Affords a kind excuse for doing ill ; 
 And Socrates, that prudent, thinking tool, 
 Had the gods lik'd him would have prov'd 2. fool. 
 Methinks our author, when without a flaw, 
 The graces of his mistress he does draw. 
 Wishes (if Metempsychosis be true, 
 And souls do change their case, and act anew). 
 In his next life he only might aspire 
 To the few brains of some soft country squire, 
 Whose head with such like rudiments is fraught. 
 As in his youth his careful grannum taught. 
 
 And now (dear friend) how shall we to thy brow 
 Pay all those laurels which we justly owe .' 
 For thou fresh honours to the work dost bring. 
 And to the theme : nor seems that pleasing thing, 
 Which he so well in Latin has express'd. 
 Less comical in English garments dress'd ; 
 Thy sentences are all so clearly wrought. 
 And so exactly plac'd in every thought. 
 That, which is more oblig'd we scarce can see 
 The subject by thine author, or himself by thee. 
 
 FINIS.