a speech should be sober and grave and least given to noise. And
therefore they begin theirs at that rate they can scarce hear themselves,
as if it were not matter whether anyone understood them. They have
learned somewhere that to move the affections a louder voice is
requisite. Whereupon they that otherwise would speak like a mouse in a
cheese start out of a sudden into a downright fury, even there too, where
there's the least need of it. A man would swear they were past the power
of hellebore, so little do they consider where 'tis they run out. Again,
because they have heard that as a speech comes up to something, a man
should press it more earnestly, they, however they begin, use a strange
contention of voice in every part, though the matter itself be never so
flat, and end in that manner as if they'd run themselves out of breath.
Lastly, they have learned that among rhetoricians there is some mention
of laughter, and therefore they study to prick in a jest here and there;
but, O Venus! so void of wit and so little to the purpose that it may be
truly called an ass's playing on the harp. And sometimes also they use
somewhat of a sting, but so nevertheless that they rather tickle than
wound; nor do they ever more truly flatter than when they would seem to
use the greatest freedom of speech. Lastly, such is their whole action
that a man would swear they had learned it from our common tumblers,
though yet they come short of them in every respect. However, they are
both so like that no man will dispute but that either these learned their
rhetoric from them, or they theirs from these. And yet they light on some
that, when they hear them, conceive they hear very Demosthenes and
Ciceroes: of which sort chiefly are our merchants and women, whose ears
only they endeavor to please, because as to the first, if they stroke
them handsomely, some part or other of their ill-gotten goods is wont to
fall to their share. And the women, though for many other things they
favor this order, this is not the least, that they commit to their
breasts whatever discontents they have against their husbands. And now, I
conceive me, you see how much this kind of people are beholding to me,
that with their petty ceremonies, ridiculous trifles, and noise exercise
a kind of tyranny among mankind, believing themselves very Pauls and
Anthonies.
But I willingly give over these stage-players that are such ingrateful
dissemblers of the courtesies I have done them and such impudent
pretenders to religion which they haven't. And now I have a mind to give
some small touches of princes and courts, of whom I am had in reverence,
aboveboard and, as it becomes gentlemen, frankly. And truly, if they had
the least proportion of sound judgment, what life were more unpleasant
than theirs, or so much to be avoided? For whoever did but truly weigh
with himself how great a burden lies upon his shoulders that would truly
discharge the duty of a prince, he would not think it worth his while to
make his way to a crown by perjury and parricide. He would consider that
he that takes a scepter in his hand should manage the public, not his
private, interest; study nothing but the common good; and not in the
least go contrary to those laws whereof himself is both the author and
exactor: that he is to take an account of the good or evil administration
of all his magistrates and subordinate officers; that, though he is but
one, all men's eyes are upon him, and in his power it is, either like a
good planet to give life and safety to mankind by his harmless influence,
or like a fatal comet to send mischief and destruction; that the vices of
other men are not alike felt, nor so generally communicated; and that a
prince stands in that place that his least deviation from the rule of
honesty and honor reaches farther than himself and opens a gap to many
men's ruin. Besides, that the fortune of princes has many things
attending it that are but too apt to train them out of the way, as
pleasure, liberty, flattery, excess; for which cause he should the more
diligently endeavor and set a watch over himself, lest perhaps he be led
aside and fail in his duty. Lastly, to say nothing of treasons, ill will,
and such other mischiefs he's in jeopardy of, that that True King is over
his head, who in a short time will call him to account for every the
least trespass, and that so much the more severely by how much more
mighty was the empire committed to his charge. These and the like if a
prince should duly weigh, and weigh it he would if he were wise, he would
neither be able to sleep nor take any hearty repast.
But now by my courtesy they leave all this care to the gods and are only
taken up with themselves, not admitting anyone to their ear but such as
know how to speak pleasant things and not trouble them with business.
They believe they have discharged all the duty of a prince if they hunt
every day, keep a stable of fine horses, sell dignities and commanderies,
and invent new ways of draining the citizens' purses and bringing it into
their own exchequer; but under such dainty new-found names that though
the thing be most unjust in itself, it carries yet some face of equity;
adding to this some little sweet'nings that whatever happens, they may be
secure of the common people. And now suppose someone, such as they
sometimes are, a man ignorant of laws, little less than an enemy to the
public good, and minding nothing but his own, given up to pleasure, a
hater of learning, liberty, and justice, studying nothing less than the
public safety, but measuring everything by his own will and profit; and
then put on him a golden chain that declares the accord of all virtues
linked one to another; a crown set with diamonds, that should put him in
mind how he ought to excel all others in heroic virtues; besides a
scepter, the emblem of justice and an untainted heart; and lastly, a
purple robe, a badge of that charity he owes the commonwealth. All which
if a prince should compare them with his own life, he would, I believe,
be clearly ashamed of his bravery, and be afraid lest some or other
gibing expounder turn all this tragical furniture into a ridiculous
laughingstock.
And as to the court lords, what should I mention them? than most of whom
though there be nothing more indebted, more servile, more witless, more
contemptible, yet they would seem as they were the most excellent of all
others. And yet in this only thing no men more modest, in that they are
contented to wear about them gold, jewels, purple, and those other marks
of virtue and wisdom; but for the study of the things themselves, they
remit it to others, thinking it happiness enough for them that they can
call the king master, have learned the cringe _à la mode_, know when and
where to use those titles of Your Grace, My Lord, Your Magnificence; in a
word that they are past all shame and can flatter pleasantly. For these
are the arts that speak a man truly noble and an exact courtier. But if
you look into their manner of life you'll find them mere sots, as
debauched as Penelope's wooers; you know the other part of the verse,
which the echo will better tell you than I can. They sleep till noon and
have their mercenary Levite come to their bedside, where he chops over
his matins before they are half up. Then to breakfast, which is scarce
done but dinner stays for them. From thence they go to dice, tables,
cards, or entertain themselves with jesters, fools, gambols, and horse
tricks. In the meantime they have one or two beverages, and then supper,
and after that a banquet, and 'twere well, by Jupiter, there were no more
than one. And in this manner do their hours, days, months, years, age
slide away without the least irksomeness. Nay, I have sometimes gone away
many inches fatter, to see them speak big words; while each of the ladies
believes herself so much nearer to the gods by how much the longer train
she trails after her; while one nobleman edges out another, that he may
get the nearer to Jupiter himself; and everyone of them pleases himself
the more by how much more massive is the chain he swags on his shoulders,
as if he meant to show his strength as well as his wealth.
Nor are princes by themselves in their manner of life, since popes,
cardinals, and bishops have so diligently followed their steps that
they've almost got the start of them. For if any of them would consider
what their Albe should put them in mind of, to wit a blameless life; what
is meant by their forked miters, whose each point is held in by the same
knot, we'll suppose it a perfect knowledge of the Old and New Testaments;
what those gloves on their hands, but a sincere administration of the
Sacraments, and free from all touch of worldly business; what their
crosier, but a careful looking after the flock committed to their charge;
what the cross born before them, but victory over all earthly
affections--these, I say, and many of the like kind should anyone truly
consider, would he not live a sad and troublesome life? Whereas now they
do well enough while they feed themselves only, and for the care of their
flock either put it over to Christ or lay it all on their suffragans, as
they call them, or some poor vicars. Nor do they so much as remember
their name, or what the word bishop signifies, to wit, labor, care, and
trouble. But in racking to gather money they truly act the part of
bishops, and herein acquit themselves to be no blind seers.
In like manner cardinals, if they thought themselves the successors of
the apostles, they would likewise imagine that the same things the other
did are required of them, and that they are not lords but dispensers of
spiritual things of which they must shortly give an exact account. But if
they also would a little philosophize on their habit and think with
themselves what's the meaning of their linen rochet, is it not a
remarkable and singular integrity of life? What that inner purple; is it
not an earnest and fervent love of God? Or what that outward, whose loose
plaits and long train fall round his Reverence's mule and are large
enough to cover a camel; is it not charity that spreads itself so wide to
the succor of all men? that is, to instruct, exhort, comfort, reprehend,
admonish, compose wars, resist wicked princes, and willingly expend not
only their wealth but their very lives for the flock of Christ: though
yet what need at all of wealth to them that supply the room of the poor
apostles? These things, I say, did they but duly consider, they would not
be so ambitious of that dignity; or, if they were, they would willingly
leave it and live a laborious, careful life, such as was that of the
ancient apostles.
And for popes, that supply the place of Christ, if they should endeavor
to imitate His life, to wit His poverty, labor, doctrine, cross, and
contempt of life, or should they consider what the name pope, that is
father, or holiness, imports, who would live more disconsolate than
themselves? or who would purchase that chair with all his substance? or
defend it, so purchased, with swords, poisons, and all force imaginable?
so great a profit would the access of wisdom deprive him of--wisdom did I
say? nay, the least corn of that salt which Christ speaks of: so much
wealth, so much honor, so much riches, so many victories, so many
offices, so many dispensations, so much tribute, so many pardons; such
horses, such mules, such guards, and so much pleasure would it lose them.
You see how much I have comprehended in a little: instead of which it
would bring in watchings, fastings, tears, prayers, sermons, good
endeavors, sighs, and a thousand the like troublesome exercises. Nor is
this least considerable: so many scribes, so many copying clerks, so many
notaries, so many advocates, so many promoters, so many secretaries, so
many muleteers, so many grooms, so many bankers: in short, that vast
multitude of men that overcharge the Roman See--I mistook, I meant
honor--might beg their bread.
A most inhuman and economical thing, and more to be execrated, that those
great princes of the Church and true lights of the world should be
reduced to a staff and a wallet. Whereas now, if there be anything that
requires their pains, they leave that to Peter and Paul that have leisure
enough; but if there be anything of honor or pleasure, they take that to
themselves. By which means it is, yet by my courtesy, that scarce any
kind of men live more voluptuously or with less trouble; as believing
that Christ will be well enough pleased if in their mystical and almost
mimical pontificality, ceremonies, titles of holiness and the like, and
blessing and cursing, they play the parts of bishops. To work miracles is
old and antiquated, and not in fashion now; to instruct the people,
troublesome; to interpret the Scripture, pedantic; to pray, a sign one
has little else to do; to shed tears, silly and womanish; to be poor,
base; to be vanquished, dishonorable and little becoming him that scarce
admits even kings to kiss his slipper; and lastly, to die, uncouth; and
to be stretched on a cross, infamous.
Theirs are only those weapons and sweet blessings which Paul mentions,
and of these truly they are bountiful enough: as interdictions, hangings,
heavy burdens, reproofs, anathemas, executions in effigy, and that
terrible thunderbolt of excommunication, with the very sight of which
they sink men's souls beneath the bottom of hell: which yet these most
holy fathers in Christ and His vicars hurl with more fierceness against
none than against such as, by the instigation of the devil, attempt to
lessen or rob them of Peter's patrimony. When, though those words in the
Gospel, "We have left all, and followed Thee," were his, yet they call
his patrimony lands, cities, tribute, imposts, riches; for which, being
enflamed with the love of Christ, they contend with fire and sword, and
not without loss of much Christian blood, and believe they have then most
apostolically defended the Church, the spouse of Christ, when the enemy,
as they call them, are valiantly routed. As if the Church had any
deadlier enemies than wicked prelates, who not only suffer Christ to run
out of request for want of preaching him, but hinder his spreading by
their multitudes of laws merely contrived for their own profit, corrupt
him by their forced expositions, and murder him by the evil example of
their pestilent life.
Nay, further, whereas the Church of Christ was founded in blood,
confirmed by blood, and augmented by blood, now, as if Christ, who after
his wonted manner defends his people, were lost, they govern all by the
sword. And whereas war is so savage a thing that it rather befits beasts
than men, so outrageous that the very poets feigned it came from the
Furies, so pestilent that it corrupts all men's manners, so unjust that
it is best executed by the worst of men, so wicked that it has no
agreement with Christ; and yet, omitting all the other, they make this
their only business. Here you'll see decrepit old fellows acting the
parts of young men, neither troubled at their costs, nor wearied with
their labors, nor discouraged at anything, so they may have the liberty
of turning laws, religion, peace, and all things else quite topsy-turvy.
Nor are they destitute of their learned flatterers that call that
palpable madness zeal, piety, and valor, having found out a new way by
which a man may kill his brother without the least breach of that charity
which, by the command of Christ, one Christian owes another. And here, in
troth, I'm a little at a stand whether the ecclesiastical German electors
gave them this example, or rather took it from them; who, laying aside
their habit, benedictions, and all the like ceremonies, so act the part
of commanders that they think it a mean thing, and least beseeming a
bishop, to show the least courage to Godward unless it be in a battle.
And as to the common herd of priests, they account it a crime to
degenerate from the sanctity of their prelates. Heidah! How soldier-like
they bustle about the _jus divinum_ of titles, and how quick-sighted they
are to pick the least thing out of the writings of the ancients wherewith
they may fright the common people and convince them, if possible, that
more than a tenth is due! Yet in the meantime it least comes in their
heads how many things are everywhere extant concerning that duty which
they owe the people. Nor does their shorn crown in the least admonish
them that a priest should be free from all worldly desires and think of
nothing but heavenly things. Whereas on the contrary, these jolly fellows
say they have sufficiently discharged their offices if they but anyhow
mumble over a few odd prayers, which, so help me, Hercules! I wonder if
any god either hear or understand, since they do neither themselves,
especially when they thunder them out in that manner they are wont. But
this they have in common with those of the heathens, that they are
vigilant enough to the harvest of their profit, nor is there any of them
that is not better read in those laws than the Scripture. Whereas if
there be anything burdensome, they prudently lay that on other men's
shoulders and shift it from one to the other, as men toss a ball from
hand to hand, following herein the example of lay princes who commit the
government of their kingdoms to their grand ministers, and they again to
others, and leave all study of piety to the common people. In like manner
the common people put it over to those they call ecclesiastics, as if
themselves were no part of the Church, or that their vow in baptism had
lost its obligation. Again, the priests that call themselves secular, as
if they were initiated to the world, not to Christ, lay the burden on the
regulars; the regulars on the monks; the monks that have more liberty on
those that have less; and all of them on the mendicants; the mendicants
on the Carthusians, among whom, if anywhere, this piety lies buried, but
yet so close that scarce anyone can perceive it. In like manner the
popes, the most diligent of all others in gathering in the harvest of
money, refer all their apostolical work to the bishops, the bishops to
the parsons, the parsons to the vicars, the vicars to their brother
mendicants, and they again throw back the care of the flock on those that
take the wool.
But it is not my business to sift too narrowly the lives of prelates and
priests for fear I seem to have intended rather a satire than an oration,
and be thought to tax good princes while I praise the bad. And therefore,
what I slightly taught before has been to no other end but that it might
appear that there's no man can live pleasantly unless he be initiated to
my rites and have me propitious to him. For how can it be otherwise when
Fortune, the great directress of all human affairs, and myself are so all
one that she was always an enemy to those wise men, and on the contrary
so favorable to fools and careless fellows that all things hit luckily
to them?
You have heard of that Timotheus, the most fortunate general of the
Athenians, of whom came that proverb, "His net caught fish, though he
were asleep;" and that "The owl flies;" whereas these others hit
properly, wise men "born in the fourth month;" and again, "He rides
Sejanus's his horse;" and "gold of Toulouse," signifying thereby the
extremity of ill fortune. But I forbear the further threading of
proverbs, lest I seem to have pilfered my friend Erasmus' adages. Fortune
loves those that have least wit and most confidence and such as like that
saying of Caesar, "The die is thrown." But wisdom makes men bashful,
which is the reason that those wise men have so little to do, unless it
be with poverty, hunger, and chimney corners; that they live such
neglected, unknown, and hated lives: whereas fools abound in money, have
the chief commands in the commonwealth, and in a word, flourish every
way. For if it be happiness to please princes and to be conversant among
those golden and diamond gods, what is more unprofitable than wisdom, or
what is it these kind of men have, may more justly be censured? If wealth
is to be got, how little good at it is that merchant like to do, if
following the precepts of wisdom, he should boggle at perjury; or being
taken in a lie, blush; or in the least regard the sad scruples of those
wise men touching rapine and usury. Again, if a man sue for honors or
church preferments, an ass or wild ox shall sooner get them than a wise
man. If a man's in love with a young wench, none of the least humors in
this comedy, they are wholly addicted to fools and are afraid of a wise
man and fly him as they would a scorpion. Lastly, whoever intend to live
merry and frolic, shut their doors against wise men and admit anything
sooner. In brief, go whither you will, among prelates, princes, judges,
magistrates, friends, enemies, from highest to lowest, and you'll find
all things done by money; which, as a wise man condemns it, so it takes a
special care not to come near him. What shall I say? There is no measure
or end of my praises, and yet 'tis fit my oration have an end. And
therefore I'll even break off; and yet, before I do it, 'twill not be
amiss if I briefly show you that there has not been wanting even great
authors that have made me famous, both by their writings and actions,
lest perhaps otherwise I may seem to have foolishly pleased myself only,
or that the lawyers charge me that I have proved nothing. After their
example, therefore, will I allege my proofs, that is to say, nothing to
the point.
And first, every man allows this proverb, "That where a man wants matter,
he may best frame some." And to this purpose is that verse which we teach
children, "'Tis the greatest wisdom to know when and where to counterfeit
the fool." And now judge yourselves what an excellent thing this folly
is, whose very counterfeit and semblance only has got such praise from
the learned. But more candidly does that fat plump "Epicurean bacon-hog,"
Horace, for so he calls himself, bid us "mingle our purposes with folly;"
and whereas he adds the word _bravem_, short, perhaps to help out the
verse, he might as well have let it alone; and again, "'Tis a pleasant
thing to play the fool in the right season;" and in another place, he had
rather "be accounted a dotterel and sot than to be wise and made mouths
at." And Telemachus in Homer, whom the poet praises so much, is now and
then called _nepios_, fool: and by the same name, as if there were some
good fortune in it, are the tragedians wont to call boys and striplings.
And what does that sacred book of Iliads contain but a kind of
counter-scuffle between foolish kings and foolish people? Besides, how
absolute is that praise that Cicero gives of it! "All things are full of
fools." For who does not know that every good, the more diffusive it is,
by so much the better it is?
But perhaps their authority may be of small credit among Christians.
We'll therefore, if you please, support our praises with some testimonies
of Holy Writ also, in the first place, nevertheless, having forespoke our
theologians that they'll give us leave to do it without offense. And in
the next, forasmuch as we attempt a matter of some difficulty and it may
be perhaps a little too saucy to call back again the Muses from Helicon
to so great a journey, especially in a matter they are wholly strangers
to, it will be more suitable, perhaps, while I play the divine and make
my way through such prickly quiddities, that I entreat the soul of
Scotus, a thing more bristly than either porcupine or hedgehog, to leave
his scorebone awhile and come into my breast, and then let him go whither
he pleases, or to the dogs, I could wish also that I might change my
countenance, or that I had on the square cap and the cassock, for fear
some or other should impeach me of theft as if I had privily rifled our
masters' desks in that I have got so much divinity. But it ought not to
seem so strange if after so long and intimate an acquaintance and
converse with them I have picked up somewhat; when as that fig-tree-god
Priapus hearing his owner read certain Greek words took so much notice of
them that he got them by heart, and that cock in Lucian by having lived
long among men became at last a master of their language.