In Praise of Folly
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 of respect and esteem. If therefore every one,
the more ignorant he is, the greater satisfaction 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
laborious student more uneasy to himself, and less acceptable to others?
As nature in her dispensation of conceited-ness has dealt with private
persons, so has she given a particular smatch of self-love to each
country and nation. Upon this account it is that the English challenge
the prerogative of having the most handsome women, of the being most
accomplished in the skill of music, and of keeping the best tables: the
Scotch brag of their gentility, and pretend the genius of their native
soil inclines them to be good disputants: the French think themselves
remarkable for complaisance and good breeding: the Sorbonists of Paris
pretend before any others to have made the greatest proficiency in
polemic divinity: the Italians value themselves for learning and
eloquence; and, like the Grecians of old, account all the world
barbarians in respect of themselves; to which piece of vanity the
inhabitants of Rome are more especially addicted, pretending themselves
to be owners of all those heroic virtues, which their city so many ages
since was deservedly 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 the product
of so many eminent philosophers. The Turks, and all the other refuse of
Mahometism, pretend they profess the only true religion, and laugh at
all Christians for superstitious, narrow-souled fools. The Jews to
this day expect their Messias as devoudy 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 human life is occasioned by self-love: next step to
which is flattery; for as self-love is nothing but the coaxing up
of ourselves, so the same currying and humouring of others is termed
flattery.
Flattery, it is true, is now looked upon as a scandalous name, but it is
by such only as mind words more than things. They are prejudiced against
it upon this account, because they suppose it justles out all truth and
sincerity? whereas indeed its property is quite contrary, as appears
from the examples of several brute creatures. What is more fawning than
a spaniel?
And yet what 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 melancholy, reinforces them when languishing,
invigorates them when heavy, recovers them when sick, and pacifies them
when rebellious: it puts us in a method how to procure friends, and how
to keep them; it entices children to swallow the bitter rudiments of
learning; it gives a new ferment 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 short-sightedness of human understanding, cannot 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 pleasure of a more happy
ignorance. Finally, our souls are so fashioned and moulded, that they
are sooner captivated by appearances, than by real truths; of which,
if any one would demand an example, he may find a very familiar one in
churches, where, if what is delivered from the pulpit be a grave, solid,
rational discourse, all the congregation grow weary, and fall asleep,
till their patience be released; whereas if the preacher (pardon the
impropriety of the word, the prater I would have said) be zealous, in
his thumps of the cushion, antic gestures, and spend his glass in the
telling of pleasant stories, his beloved shall then stand up, tuck their
hair behind their ears, and be very devoutly attentive. So among the
saints, those are most resorted to who are most romantic and fabulous:
as for instance, a poetic St. George, a St. Christopher, or a St.
Barbara, shall be oftener prayed to than St. Peter, St. Paul, nay,
perhaps than Christ himself; but this, it is possible, may more properly
be referred to another place.
In the mean while observe what a cheap purchase of happiness is made by
the strength of fancy. For whereas many things even of inconsiderable
value, would cost a great deal of pains and perhaps pelf, to procure;
opinion spares charges, and yet gives us them in as ample a manner by
conceit, as if we possessed them in reality. Thus he who feeds on such
a stinking dish of fish, as another must hold his nose at a yard's
distance from, yet if he feed heartily, and relish them 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,
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 presented his bride with
several false and counterfeit stones, making 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
pleased as if he had been at ten hundred times the cost What difference
is there between them that in the darkest dungeon, can with a platonic
brain survey the whole world in idea, and him that stands in the open
air, and takes a less deluding prospect of the universe? If the beggar
in 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 him only in the price of a single
thought; and then, secondly, because he has more fellow-companions and
partakers of his good fortune: for no enjoyment is 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 ourselves: 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 properties 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.
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 victory but to one party; nay, he often makes them both losers:
Apollo does not answer the expectation 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
divinity, 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 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