" mentemque habere quêis bonam Et esse "corculis datum est." These acute and subtil Sophisters, so much honoured, have as much need of Hellebor as others. -"yo Medici mediam pertundite venam." Reade Lucian's Piscator, and tell how he esteemed them; Agrippa's Tract of the vanity of Sciences; nay read their own works, their absurd tenets, prodigious paradoxes, & risum teneatis amici? You shall finde that of Aristotle true, nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementia, they have a worm as well as others; you shall finde a phantastical strain, a fustian, a bumbast, a vainglorious humor, an affected stile, &c. like a prominent thred in an uneven woven cloth, run parallel throughout their works. And they that teach wisdom, patience, meeknesse, are the veriest dizards, hairbrains, and most discontent. ❝a In the multitude of wisdom is grief, and he that encreaseth wisdom, encreaseth sorrow." I need not quote mine author; they that laugh and contemn others, condemn the world of folly, deserve to be mocked, are as giddy-headed, and lie as open as any other. Democritus, that common flouter of folly, was ridiculous himself, barking Menippus, scoffing Lucian, satyrical Lucilius, Petronius, Varro, Persius, &c. may be censured with the rest, Loripedem rectus derideat, Æthiopem albus. Bale, Erasmus, Hospinian, Vives, Kemnisius, explode as a vast Ocean of Obs and Sols, School divinity, A labyrinth of intricable questions, unprofitable contentions, incredibilem delirationem, one cals it. If School divinity be so censured, subtilis Scotus lima veritatis, Occam irrefragabilis, cujus ingenium vetera omnia ingenia subvertit, &c. Baconthrope, Dr. Resolutus, and Corculum Theologia, Thomas himself, Doctor Seraphicus, cui dictavit Angelus, &c. what shall become of humanity? Ars stulta, what can she plead? what can her followers say for themselvs? Much learning cere-diminuit-brum, hath crackt their skonce, and taken such root, that tribus Anticyris caput insanabile, Hellebor itself can do no good, nor that renowned & Lanthorn of Epictetus, by which if any man studied, he should be as wise as he was. But all wil not serve, Rhetoricians, in ostentationem loquacitatis multa agitant, out of their volubility of tongue, will talk much to e с * Insa y Juvenal. d Sca F. Dousæ Epid. lib. 1. c. 13. "Hoc cognomento cohonestati Romæ, qui cæteros mortales sapientiâ præstarent, testis Plin. lib. 7. cap. 34. nire parant certa ratione modoque, mad by the book they. • Salomon. • Communis irrisor stultitia. • Wit whither wilt? liger exercitat. 524. Vit. ejus. f Ennius. drachmis olim cnpta; studens inde sapientiam adipiscetur. 8 Lucian. Ter mille no no purpose, Orators can perswade other men what they will, quo volunt, unde volunt, move, pacifie, &c. but cannot settle their own brains, what saith Tully? Malo indisertam prudentiam, quam loquacem stultitiam; and ash Seneca seconds him, a wise man's Oration should not be polite or solicitous. iFabius esteems no better of most of them, either in speech, action, gesture, then as men beside themselves, insanos declamatores; so doth Gregory, Non mihi sapit qui sermone, sed qui factis sapit. Make the best of him, a good Orator is a turncoat, an evil man, bonus Orator pessimus vir, his tongue is set to sale, he is a meer voice, as he said of a Nightingale, dat sine mente sonum, an hyperbolical liar, a flaterer, a parasite, and as Ammianus Marcellinus will, a corrupting cosener, one that doth more mischief by his fair speeches, then he that bribes by mony; for a man may with more facility avoid him that circumvents by money, then him that deceives with glosing terms; which made m Socrates so much abhor and explode them. Fracastorius, a famous Poet, freely grants all Poets to be mad; so doth Scaliger; and who doth not? Aut insanit homo, aut versus facit, Hor. Sat. 7. 1. 2. Insanire lubet, i. versus componere. Virg. 3. Egl. so Servius interprets it, all Poets are mad, a company of bitter Satyrists, detractors, or else parasitical applauders: and what is Poetry it self, but as Austin holds, Vinum erroris ab ebriis doctoribus propinatum? You may give that censure of them in general, which Sir Thomas Moore once did of Germanus Brixius' Poems in particular. "vehuntur. In rate stultitiæ, sylvam habitant Furiæ." Budæus, in an Epistle of his to Lupsetus, will have civil Law to be the tower of wisdom; another honours physick, the Quintessence of Nature; a third tumbles them both down, and sets up the flag of his own peculiar science. Your supercilious Criticks, Grammatical triflers, Note-makers, curious Antiquaries, finde out all the ruines of wit, ineptiarum delicias, amongst the rubbish of old writers; P Pro stultis habent nisi aliquid sufficiant invenire, quod in aliorum scriptis vertant vitio, all fools with them that cannot find fault; they correct others, and are hot in a cold cause, puzzle themselves to finde out how many streets in Rome, houses, gates, towers, tam. Epist. 21. 1. lib. Non oportet orationem sapientis esse politam aut soliciLib. 3. cap. 13. multo anhelitu jactatione furentes pectus, frontem cædentes, &c. *Lipsius, voces sunt, præterea nihil. 1 Lib. 30. plus mali facere videtur qui oratione quàm qui præcio quemvis corrumpit: nam, &c. In Gorg. Platonis. " In naugerio. Si furor sit Ly æus, &c. quoties furit, furit, furit, amans, bibens, & Poeta, &c. P Morus Utop. lib. 11. II + Homer's Homer's countrey, Æneas' mother, Niobe's daughters, an Sapho publica fuerit? ovum prius extiterit an gallina! &c. & alia que dediscenda essent scire, si scires, as 'Seneca holds. What clothes the Senators did wear in Rome, what shoes, how they sat, where they went to the close stool, how many dishes in a messe, what sauce, which for the present for an historian to relate, according to Lodovic. Vives, is very ridiculous, is to them most precious elaborate stuff, they admired for it, and as proud, as triumphant in the mean time for this discovery, as if they had won a city, or conquered a province; as rich as if they had found a mine of gold ore. Quosvis authores absurdis commentis suis percacant & stercorant, one saith, they bewray and dawb a company of books and good Authors, with their absurd Comments, correctorum sterquilinia Scaliger cals them, and shew their wit in censuring others, a company of foolish notemakers, humble-bees, dors or beetles, inter stercora utplurimum versantur, they rake over all those rubbish and dunghils, and prefer a manuscript many times before the Gospel itself, thesaurum criticum, before any treasure, and with their deleaturs, alii legunt sic, meus codex sic habet, with their postreme editiones, annotations, castigations, &c. make books dear, themselves ridiculous, and do no body good, yet if any man dare oppose or contradict, they are mad, up in arms on a sudden, how many sheets are written in defence, how bitter invectives, what apologies? Epiphilledes hæ sunt ut meræ nuga. But I dare say no more of, for, with, or against them, because I am liable to their lash, as well as others. Of these and the rest of our Artists and Philosophers, I will generally conclude they are a kind of mad men, as Seneca esteems of them, to make doubts and scruples, how to read them truly, to mend old authors, but will not mend their own lives, or teach us ingenia sanare, memoriam officiorum ingerere, ac fidem in rebus humanis retinere, to keep our wits in order, or rectify our manners. Numquid tibi demens videtur, si istis operam impenderit? is not he mad that draws lines with Archimedes, whiles his house is ransacked, and his city besieged, when the whole world is in combustion, or we whilst our souls are in danger, (mors sequitur, vita fugit) to spend our time in toyes, idle questions, and things of no worth? a b That Lovers are mad, I think no man will deny, Amare simul & sapere, ipsi Jovi non datur, Jupiter himself cannot intend both at once, Macrob. Satur. 7. 16. Epist. 16. Lib. 2. in Ausonium, cap. 19. & 32. Aristophanis Ranis. merit. Hor. Seneca. Lib. de beneficiis. Lib. de causis corrup. artium. "Non « Non benè conveniunt, nec in unâ sede morantur Majestas & amor." Tully, when he was invited to a second marriage, replied, he could not simul amare & sapere, be wise and love both together. Est orcus ille, vis est immedicabilis, est rabies insana, Love is madnesse, a hell, an incurable disease; impotentem & insanam libidinem Seneca cals it, an impotent and raging lust. I shal dilate this subject apart; in the mean time let Lovers sigh out the rest. f & Nevisanus the Lawyer holds it for an axiome, “most women are fools," "consilium fæminis invalidum; Seneca men, be they yong or old; who doubts it, youth is mad as Elius in Tully, Stulti adolescentuli, old age little better, deliri senes, &c. Theophrastes in the 107. year of his age, said he then began to be wise, tum sapere cæpit, and therefore lamented his departure. If wisdom come so late, where shall we finde a wise man? our old ones dote at threescore and ten. I would cite more proofs, and a better Author, but for the present, let one fool point at another.Nevisanus hath as hard an opinion of rich men, "wealth and wisdom cannot dwell together," stultitiam patiuntur opes," and they do commonly" infatuare cor hominis, besot men; and as we see it, "fools have fortune:"Sapientia non invenitur in terra suaviter viventium. For beside a natural contempt of learning, which accompanies such kind of men, innate idlenesse, (for they will take no pains) and which PAristotle observes, ubi mens plurima, ibi minima fortuna, ubi plurima fortuna, ibi mens perexigua, great wealth and little wit go commonly together they have as much brains some of them in their heads as in their heels; besides this inbred neglect of liberal sciences, and all Arts, which should excolere mentem, polish the minde, they have most part some gullish humor or other, by which they are led; one is an Epicure, an Atheist, a second a gamester, a third a whoremaster, (fit subjects all for a Satyrist to work upon,) "Hic nuptarum insanit amoribus, hic puerorum," one is mad of hawking, hunting, cocking; another of carousing, horse-riding, spending; a fourth of building, fighting, &c. & Ovid. Met. e Plutarch. Amatorio est amor insanus. f Epist. 39. h Aris * Sylvæ nuptialis 1. 1. num. 11. Omnes mulieres utplurimum stultæ. totle. i Dolere se dixit quod tum vita egrederetur. * Lib. 1. num. 11 They get their wisdom sapientia & divitiæ vix simul possideri possunt. by eating Pie-crust some. m · χρήματα τοῖς θνητοῖς γίνετω αφροσινη. Opes quidem mortalibus sunt amentia. Theognis. n Fortuna niinium quem fovet, stultum facit. Hor. ser. 1. sat. 4. Joh. 28. P Mag. moral. lib. 2. & lib. 1. sat. 4. Insana gula, insanæ obstructiones, insanum venandi studium discordia demens. Virg. Æn. "Insanit "Insanit veteres statuas Damasippus emendo," Damasippus hath an humor of his own, to be talkt of: Heliodorus the Carthaginian another. In a word, as Scaliger concludes of them all, they are Statue erecte stultitie, the very statues or pillars of folly. Chuse out of all stories him that hath been most admired, you shall still find, multa ad laudem, multa ad vituperationem magnifica, as Berosus of Semiramis; omnes mortales militiá, triumphis, divitiis, &c. tum & luxu, cæde, cæterisq; vitiis antecessit, as she had some good, so had she many bad parts. Alexander, a worthy man, but furious in his anger, overtaken in drink: Cæsar and Scipio valiant and wise, but vainglorious, ambitious: Vespasian a worthy Prince, but covetous: "Hannibal, as he had mighty virtues, so had he many vices; unam virtutem mille vitia comitantur, as Machiavel of Cosmus Medices, he had two distinct persons in him. I will determine of them all, they are like these double or turning pictures; stand before which, you see a fair maid, on the one side an ape, on the other an owl; look upon them at the first sight all is wel, but farther examine, you shall find them wise on the one side, and fools on the other; in some few things praise worthy, in the rest incomparably faulty. I will say nothing of their diseases, emulations, discontents, wants, and such miseries; let poverty plead the rest in Aristophanes Plutus. Covetous men, amongst others, are most mad, * they have all the Symptoms of melancholy, fear, sadnesse, suspition, &c. as shall be proved in his proper place, "Danda est Hellebori multo pars maxima avaris." And yet me thinks prodigals are much madder than they, be of what condition they will, that bear a publick, or private purse; as a Dutch, writer censured Richard the rich Duke of Cornwal, suing to be Emperor, for his profuse spending, qui effudit pecuniam ante pedes principium Electorum sicut aquam, that scattered mony like water; I do censure them, Stulta Anglia (saith he) que tot denariis sponte est privata, stulti principes Alemaniæ, qui nobile jus suum pro pecunia vendiderunt; spendthrifts, bribers, and bribe-takers are fools, and so are all they that cannot keep, disburse, or spend their moneys well. น • Heliodorus Carthaginensis ad extremum orbis sarcophago testamento me hic jussi condier, & ut viderem an quis insanior ad me visendữ usq; ad bæc loca penetraret. Ortelius in Gad. If it be his work, which Gasper Veretus Livy Ingentes virtutes ingentia vitia. * Her. Quisquis ambitione mala aut argenti pallet amore, Quisquis luxuria, tristiq; superstitione Per. y Cronica Slavonica ad annum 1257. de cujus pecunia jam incredibilia dixerunt. A fool and his money are soon parted. suspects. I might |