In Praise of Folly
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 intimate
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 affront, 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 all persons
everywhere pay me that more acceptable service, which all divines
agree to be more effectual and meritorious, namely, an imitation of
my communicable attributes? 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 among christians as is much to be wished it were: for
how many zealous votaries are there that pay so profound respect to
the Virgin Mary, as to place lighted tapers even at noon day upon her
altars? And yet how few of them copy after her untouched chastity, her
modesty, and her other commendable virtues, in the imitation whereof
consists the truest esteem of divine worship? Farther, why should I
desire a temple, since the whole world is but one ample continued choir,
entirely dedicated 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 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 respect 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 image of me, _i.e._ 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, Minerva 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 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 mankind, 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 superadded
one more, to laugh at them as much as they do at the other.
It is indeed almost incredible to relate what mirth, what sport,
what diversion, the grovelling inhabitants here on earth give to the
above-seated gods in heaven: for these exalted deities spend their
fasting sober hours in listening to those petitions that are offered up,
and in succouring 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 more delightsome prospect, than
to view such a theatre so stuffed and crammed with swarms of fools. One
falls desperately in love, and the 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 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 covetous 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 purchase 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 weapons, and
(as oft happens) are gulled by those very persons they intended to make
a prey of.
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
think 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 fastening on, and purloining whatever they
can get, and converting it to their own use and possession; there are
some who are rich only in wishes, and yet while they barely dream
of vast mountains of wealth, they are as happy as if their imaginary
fancies commenced real truths; some put on the best side outermost, and
starve themselves 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 all he can come within
the reach of; one apes it about in the streets to court popularity;
another consults his ease, and sticks to the confinement 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, fighting, fluttering, skipping, playing, just new
produced, 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; 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
elaboratories, nay, bridewells, and houses of correction?), to wear out
themselves in fret and drudgery; 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 conceit, 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, think 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 an art of making ordinary people, such as
their school boys' fond parents, to think them as considerable as their
own pride has made them. Add hereunto this other sort of ravishing
pleasure: when any of them has found out who was the mother of Anchises,