Chapter V: Part 5

The nation sits in the immense city they have builded--a London extended into every man's mind. The modern world is theirs. They have made and make it day by day. In every path of practical ability they have gone even with the best. There is no department of literature, of science, or of useful art in which they have not produced a first-rate book. It is England whose opinion is waited for. English trade exists to make well everything which is ill-made elsewhere. Steam is almost an Englishman.

One secret of the power of this people is their mutual good understanding. Not only good minds are born among them, but all the people have good minds. An electric touch by any of their national ideas melts them into one family. The chancellor carries England on his mace, the midshipman at the point of his dirk, the smith on his hammer, the cook in the bowl of his spoon, and the sailor times his oars to "God save the King!"

I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes. The one thing the English value is pluck. The word is not beautiful, but on the quality they signify by it the nation is unanimous. The cabmen have it, the merchants have it, the bishops have it, the women have it, the journals have it. They require you to dare to be of your own opinion, and they hate the practical cowards who cannot answer directly Yes or No.

Their vigour appears in the incuriosity and stony neglect each of the other. Each man walks, eats, drinks, shaves, dresses, gesticulates, and in every manner acts and suffers, without reference to the bystanders--he is really occupied with his own affairs, and does not think of them. In short, every one of these islanders is an island himself, safe, tranquil, incommunicable.

Born in a harsh and wet climate, which keeps him indoors whenever he is at rest, and, being of an affectionate and loyal temper, the Englishman dearly loves his home. If he is rich he builds a hall, and brings to it trophies of the adventures and exploits of the family, till it becomes a museum of heirlooms. England produces, under favourable conditions of ease and culture, the finest women in the world. Nothing can be more delicate without being fantastical, than the courtship and mutual carriage of the sexes. Domesticity is the taproot which enables the nation to branch wide and high. In an aristocratical country like England, not the trial by jury, but the dinner is the capital institution. It is the mode of doing honour to a stranger to ask him to eat.

The practical power of the English rests on their sincerity. Alfred, whom the affection of the nation makes the type of their race, is called by a writer at the Norman Conquest, the "truth-speaker." The phrase of the lowest of the people is "honour-bright," and their praise, "his word is as good as his bond." They confide in each other--English believes in English. Madame de Staël says that the English irritated Napoleon mainly because they have found out how to unite success with honesty. The ruling passion of an Englishman is a terror of humbug.

The English race are reputed morose. They have enjoyed a reputation for taciturnity for six or seven hundred years. Cold, repressive manners prevail, and there is a wooden deadness in certain Englishmen which surpasses all other countrymen. In the power of saying rude truth no men rival them. They are proud and private, and even if disposed to recreation will avoid an open garden. They are full of coarse strength, butcher's meat, and sound sleep. They are good lovers, good haters, slow but obstinate admirers, and very much steeped in their temperament, like men hardly awaked from deep sleep which they enjoy.

The English have a mild aspect, and ringing, cheerful voice. Of absolute stoutness of spirit, no nation has more or better examples. They are good at storming redoubts, at boarding frigates, at dying in the last ditch, or any desperate service which has daylight and honour in it. They stoutly carry into every nook and corner of the earth their turbulent sense of inquiry, leaving no lie uncontradicted, no pretension unexamined.

They are very conscious of their advantageous position in history. I suppose that all men of English blood in America, Europe, or Asia, have a secret feeling of joy that they are not Frenchmen. They only are not foreigners. In short, I am afraid that the English nature is so rank and aggressive as to be a little incompatible with any other. The world is not wide enough for two. More intellectual than other races, when they live with other races they do not take their language, but bestow their own. They subsidise other nations, and are not subsidised. They proselytise and are not proselytised. They assimilate other nations to themselves and are not assimilated.

_III.--Wealth, Aristocracy, and Religion_

There is no country in which so absolute a homage is paid to wealth. There is a mixture of religion in it. The Englishman esteems wealth a final certificate. He believes that every man has himself to thank if he does not mend his condition. To pay their debts is their national point of honour. The British armies are solvent, and pay for what they take. The British empire is solvent. It is their maxim that the weight of taxes must be calculated not by what is taken but by what is left. They say without shame: "I cannot afford it." Such is their enterprise, that there is enough wealth in England to support the entire population in idleness one year. The proudest result of this creation of wealth is that great and refined forces are put at the disposal of the private citizen, and in the social world the Englishman to-day has the best lot. I much prefer the condition of an English gentleman of the better class to that of any potentate in Europe.

The feudal character of the English state, now that it is getting obsolete, glares a little in contrast with democratic tendencies. But the frame of society is aristocratic. Every man who becomes rich buys land, and does what he can to fortify the nobility, into which he hopes to rise. The taste of the people is conservative. They are proud of the castles, language, and symbols of chivalry. English history is aristocracy with the doors open. Who has courage and faculty, let him come in.

All nobility in its beginnings was somebody's natural superiority. The things these English have done were not done without peril of life, nor without wisdom of conduct, and the first hands, it may be presumed, were often challenged to show their right to their honours, or yield them to better men.

Comity, social talent, and fine manners no doubt have had their part also. The lawyer, the farmer, the silk mercer lies _perdu_ under the coronet, and winks to the antiquary to say nothing. They were nobody's sons who did some piece of work at a nice moment.

The English names are excellent--they spread an atmosphere of legendary melody over the land. Older than epics and histories, which clothe a nation, this undershirt sits close to the body. What stores of primitive and savage observation it infolds! Cambridge is the bridge of the Cam; Sheffield the field of the river Sheaf; Leicester the camp of Lear; Waltham is Strong Town; Radcliffe is Red Cliff, and so on--a sincerity and use in naming very striking to an American, whose country is whitewashed all over with unmeaning names, the cast-off clothes of the country from which the emigrants came, or named at a pinch from a psalm tune.

In seeing old castles and cathedrals I sometimes say: "This was built by another and a better race than any that now look on it." Their architecture still glows with faith in immortality. Good churches are not built by bad men; at least, there must be probity and enthusiasm somewhere in society.

England felt the full heat of the Christianity which fermented Europe, and, like the chemistry of fire, drew a firm line between barbarism and culture. When the Saxon instinct had secured a service in the vernacular tongue the Church was the tutor and university of the people.

Now the Anglican Church is marked by the grace and good sense of its forms; by the manly grace of its clergy. The gospel it preaches is "By taste are ye saved." The religion of England is part of good breeding. When you see on the Continent the well-dressed Englishman come into his ambassador's chapel and put his face for silent prayer into his well-brushed hat, you cannot help feeling how much national pride prays with him, and the religion of a gentleman.

At this moment the Church is much to be pitied. If a bishop meets an intelligent gentleman and reads fatal interrogation in his eyes, he has no resource but to take wine with him.

But the religion of England--is it the Established Church? No. Is it the sects? No. Where dwells the religion? Tell me first where dwells electricity, or motion, or thought? They do not dwell or stay at all. Electricity is passing, glancing, gesticular; it is a traveller, a newness, a secret. Yet, if religion be the doing of all good, and for its sake the suffering of all evil, that divine secret has existed in England from the days of Alfred to the days of Florence Nightingale, and in thousands who have no fame.

Representative Men

Some of the lectures delivered by Emerson during his lecturing
tour in England were published in 1850 under the title of
"Representative Men," and the main trend of their thought
and opinion is here followed in Emerson's own words. It will
be noted that the use of the term "sceptic," as applied to
Montaigne, is not the ordinary use of the word, but signifies
a person spontaneously given to free inquiry rather than
aggressive disbelief. The estimate of Napoleon is original. In
"Representative Men" Emerson is much more consecutive in his
thought than is customary with him. His pearls are as plentiful
here as elsewhere, but they are not scattered disconnectedly.

_Plato_

Among secular books, Plato only is entitled to Omar's fanatical compliment to the Koran: "Burn all books, for their value is in this book." Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated among men of thought. Plato is philosophy, and philosophy Plato. No wife, no children had he, but the thinkers of all civilised nations are his posterity, and are tinged with his mind.

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies. They lived in their writings, and so their house and street life is commonplace. Their cousins can tell you nothing about them. Plato, especially, has no external biography.

Plato stands between the truth and every man's mind, and has almost impressed language and the primary forms of thought with his name and seal.

The first period of a nation, as of an individual, is the period of unconscious strength. Children cry, scream, and stamp with fury, unable to express their desires. As soon as they can speak and tell their wants they become gentle. With nations he is as a god to them who can rightly divide and define. This defining is philosophy. Philosophy is the account which the human mind gives to itself of the constitution of the world.

Two cardinal facts lie ever at the base of thought: Unity and Variety--oneness and otherness.

To this partiality the history of nations corresponds. The country of unity, faithful to the idea of a deaf, unimplorable, immense fate, is Asia; on the other side, the genius of Europe is active and creative. If the East loves infinity, the West delights in boundaries. Plato came to join and enhance the energy of each. The excellence of Europe and Asia is in his brain. No man ever more fully acknowledged the Ineffable; but having paid his homage, as for the human race, to the illimitable, he then stood erect, and for the human race affirmed: "And yet things are knowable!" Full of the genius of Europe, he said "Culture," he said "Nature," but he failed not to add, "There is also the divine."

This leads us to the central figure which he has established in his academy. Socrates and Plato are the double-star which the most powerful instrument will not entirely separate. Socrates, in his traits and genius, is the best example of that synthesis which constitutes Plato's extraordinary power.

Socrates, a man of humble stem, and a personal homeliness so remarkable as to be a cause of wit in others, was a cool fellow, with a knowledge of his man, be he whom he might whom he talked with, which laid the companion open to certain defeat in debate; and in debate he immoderately delighted. He was what in our country people call "an old one." This hard-headed humorist, whose drollery diverted the young patricians, turns out in the sequel to have a probity as invincible as his logic, and to be, under cover of this play, enthusiastic in his religion. When accused before the judges, he affirmed the immortality of the soul and a future reward and punishment, and, refusing to recant, was condemned to die; he entered the prison and took away all ignominy from the place. The fame of this prison, the fame of the discourses there, and the drinking of the hemlock, are one of the most precious passages in the history of the world.

The rare coincidence in one ugly body of the droll and the martyr, the keen street debater with the sweetest saint known to any history at that time, had forcibly struck the mind of Plato, and the figure of Socrates placed itself in the foreground of the scene as the fittest dispenser of the intellectual treasures he had to communicate.

It remains to say that the defect of Plato is that he is literary, and never otherwise. His writings have not the vital authority which the screams of prophets and the sermons of unlettered Arabs and Jews possess.

And he had not a system. The acutest German, the lovingest disciple could never tell what Platonism was. No power of genius has ever yet had the smallest success in explaining existence. The perfect enigma remains.

_Montaigne_

The philosophers affirm disdainfully the superiority of ideas. To men of this world the man of ideas appears out of his reason. The abstractionist and the materialist thus mutually exasperating each other, there arises a third party to occupy the middle ground between the two, the sceptic. He labours to be the beam of the balance. There is so much to say on all sides. This is the position occupied by Montaigne.

In 1571, on the death of his father, he retired from the practice of the law, at Bordeaux, and settled himself on his estate. Downright and plain dealing, and abhorring to be deceived or to deceive, he was esteemed in the country for his sense and probity. In the civil wars of the League, which converted every house into a fort, Montaigne kept his gates open, and his house without defence. All parties freely came and went, his courage and honor being universally esteemed.

Montaigne is the frankest and honestest of all writers. The essays are an entertaining soliloquy on every random topic that comes into his head, treating everything without ceremony, yet with masculine sense. I know not anywhere the book that seems less written. It is the language of conversation transferred to a book. Montaigne talks with shrewdness, knows the world, and books, and himself; never shrieks, or protests, or prays. He keeps the plain; he rarely mounts or sinks; he likes to feel solid ground and the stones underneath.

We are natural believers. We are persuaded that a thread runs through all things, and all worlds are strung on it as beads. But though we reject a sour, dumpish unbelief, to the sceptical class, which Montaigne represents, every man at some time belongs. The ground occupied by the sceptic is the vestibule of the temple. The interrogation of custom at all points is an inevitable stage in the growth of every superior mind. It stands in the mind of the wise sceptic that our life in this world is not quite so easy of interpretation as churches and school books say. He does not wish to take ground against these benevolences, but he says: "There are doubts. Shall we, because good nature inclines us to virtue's side, say, 'There are no doubts--and lie for the right?' Is not the satisfaction of the doubts essential to all manliness?"

I may play with the miscellany of facts, and take those superficial views which we call scepticism; but I know they will presently appear to me in that order which makes scepticism impossible. For the world is saturated with deity and law. Things seem to tend downward, to justify despondency, to promote rogues, to defeat the just; but by knaves as by martyrs the just cause is carried forward, and general ends are somewhat answered. The world-spirit is a good swimmer, and storms and waves cannot drown him. Through the years and the centuries, through evil agents, through toys and atoms, a great and beneficent tendency irresistibly streams. So let a man learn to look for the permanent in the mutable and fleeting; let him learn to bear the disappearance of things he was wont to reverence without losing his reverence.

_Shakespeare_

Shakespeare is the only biographer of Shakespeare. So far from Shakespeare being the least known, he is the one person in all modern history known to us. What point of morals, of manners, of economy, of philosophy, of taste, of conduct of life has he not settled? What district of man's work has he not remembered? What king has he not taught statecraft? What maiden has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he not outloved?

Some able and appreciating critics think no criticism on Shakespeare valuable that does not rest purely on the dramatic merit; that he is falsely judged as poet and philosopher. I think as highly as these critics of his dramatic merit, but still think it secondary. He was a full man who liked to talk; a brain exhaling thoughts and images, which, seeking vent, found the drama next at hand.

Shakespeare is as much out of the category of eminent authors as he is out of the crowd. He is inconceivably wise; the others, conceivably. With this wisdom of life is the equal endowment of imaginative and lyric power. An omnipresent humanity co-ordinates all his faculties. He has no peculiarity, no importunate topic, but all is duly given. No mannerist is he; he has no discoverable egotism--the great he tells greatly, the small subordinately. He is wise without emphasis or assertion; he is strong as Nature is strong, who lifts the land into mountain slopes without effort, and by the same rule as she floats a bubble in the air, and likes as well to do the one as the other. This power of transferring the inmost truth of things into music and verse makes him the type of the poet.

One royal trait that belongs to Shakespeare is his cheerfulness. He delights in the world, in man, in woman, for the lovely light that sparkles from them. Beauty, the spirit of joy, he sheds over the universe. If he appeared in any company of human souls, who would not march in his troop? He touches nothing that does not borrow health and longevity from his festal style. He was master of the revels to mankind.

_Napoleon_

Among the eminent persons of the nineteenth century, Bonaparte owes his predominance to the fidelity with which he expresses the aim of the masses of active and cultivated men. If Napoleon was Europe, it was because the people whom he swayed were little Napoleons. He is the representative of the class of industry and skill. "God has granted," says the Koran, "to every people a prophet in its own tongue." Paris, London, and New York, the spirit of commerce, of money, of material power, were also to have their prophet--and Bonaparte was qualified and sent. He was the idol of common men because he, in transcendent degree, had the qualities and powers of common men. He came to his own and they received him.

An Italian proverb declares that if you would succeed you must not be too good. Napoleon renounced, once for all, sentiments and affections, and helped himself with his hands and his head. The art of war was the game in which he exerted his arithmetic. He had a directness of action never before combined with so much comprehension. History is full of the imbecility of kings and governors. They are a class of persons to be much pitied, for they know not what they should do. But Napoleon understood his business. He knew what to do, and he flew to his mark. He put out all his strength; he risked everything; he spared nothing; he went to the edge of his possibilities.

This vigour was guarded and tempered by the coldest prudence and punctuality. His very attack was never the inspiration of courage, but the result of calculation. The necessity of his position required a hospitality to every sort of talent, and his feeling went along with this policy. In fact, every species of merit was sought and advanced under his government. Seventeen men in his time were raised from common soldiers to the rank of king, marshal, duke, or general. I call Napoleon the agent or attorney of the middle class of modern society.

His life was an experiment, under the most favourable conditions, of the powers of intellect without conscience. All passed away, like the smoke of his artillery, and left no trace. He did all that in him lay to live and thrive without moral principle.

_Goethe_

I find a provision in the constitution of the world for the writer or secretary who is to report the doings of the miraculous spirit of life that everywhere throbs and works. Nature will be reported. All things are engaged in writing their history. The planet goes attended by its shadow. The air is full of sounds, the sky of tokens; the ground is all memoranda and signatures.

Society has really no graver interest than the well-being of the literary class. Still, the writer does not stand with us on any commanding ground. I think this to be his own fault. There have been times when he was a sacred person; he wrote Bibles; the first hymns; the codes; the epics; tragic songs; Sibylline verses; Chaldæan oracles. Every word was true, and woke the nations to new life. How can he be honoured when he is a sycophant ducking to the giddy opinion of a reckless public?

Goethe was the philosopher of the nineteenth century multitude, hundred-handed, Argus-eyed, able and happy to cope with the century's rolling miscellany of facts and sciences, and by his own versatility dispose of them with ease; and what he says of religion, of passion, of marriage, of manners, of property, of paper-money, of periods of belief, of omens, of luck, of whatever else, refuses to be forgotten.

What distinguishes Goethe, for French and English readers, is an habitual reference to interior truth. But I dare not say that Goethe ascended to the highest grounds from which genius has spoken. He is incapable of self-surrender to the moral sentiment. Goethe can never be dear to men. His is a devotion to truth for the sake of culture. But the idea of absolute eternal truth, without reference to my own enlargement by it is higher; and the surrender to the torrent of poetic inspiration is higher.

ERASMUS

Familiar Colloquies

Desiderius Erasmus, the most learned ecclesiastic of the
fifteenth century, and the friend of Luther and other reformers,
was born at Rotterdam on October 28, 1466, and died at Basel on
July 12, 1536. He was the son of a Dutchman named Gerard, and,
according to the fashion of the age, changed his family name
into its respective Latin and Greek equivalents, Desiderius and
Erasmus, meaning "desired," or "loved." Entering the priesthood
in 1492, he pursued his studies at Paris, and became so renowned
a scholar that he was, on visiting England, received with
distinction, not only at the universities, but also by the king.
For some time Erasmus settled in Italy, brilliant prospects being
held out to him at Rome; but his restless temperament impelled
him to wander again, and he came again to England, where he
associated with the most distinguished scholars, including Dean
Colet and Sir Thomas More. Perhaps nothing in the whole range
of mediæval literature made a greater sensation immediately on
its appearance, in 1521, than the "Colloquia," or "Familiar
Colloquies Concerning Men, Manners, and Things," of Erasmus. As
its title indicates, it consists of dialogues, and its author
intended it to make youths more proficient in Latin, that
language being the chief vehicle of intercommunication in the
Middle Ages. But Erasmus claims, in his preface, that another
purpose of the book is to make better men as well as better
Latinists, for he says: "If the ancient teachers of children are
commended who allured the young with wafers, I think it ought
not to be charged on me that by the like reward I allure youths
either to the elegancy of the Latin tongue or to piety." This
selection is made from the Latin text.

_Concerning Men, Manners and Things_

Erasmus issued his first edition of the "Colloquies" in 1521. Successive editions appeared with great rapidity. Its popularity wherever Latin was read was immense, but it was condemned by the Sarbonne, prohibited in France, and devoted to the flames publicly in Spain. The reader of its extraordinary chapters will not fail to comprehend that such a fate was inevitable in the case of such a production in those times. For, as the friend of the reformers who were "turning the world upside down," Erasmus in this treatise penned the most audacious, sardonic, and withering onslaught ever delivered by any writer on ecclesiastical corruption of religion. He never attacks religion itself, but extols and defends it; his aim is to launch a series of terrific innuendoes on ecclesiasticism as it had developed and as he saw it. He satirically, and even virulently, attacks monks and many of their habits, the whole system of cloister-life, the festivals and pilgrimages which formed one of the chief features of religious activity, and the grotesque superstitions which his peculiar genius for eloquent irony so well qualified him to caricature.

This great work, one of the epoch-making books of the world, consists of sixty-two "Colloquies," of very varying length. They treat of the most curiously diverse topics, as may be imagined from such titles of the chapters as "The Youth's Piety," "The Lover and the Maiden," "The Shipwreck," "The Epithalamium of Peter Egidius," "The Alchemist," "The Horse Cheat," "The Cyclops, or the Gospel Carrier," "The Assembly or Parliament of Women," "Concerning Early Rising."

A sample of the style of the "Colloquies" in the more serious sections may be taken from the one entitled "The Religious Banquet."

NEPHEW: How unwillingly have I seen many Christians die. Some put their trust in things not to be confided in; others breathe out their souls in desperation, either out of a consciousness of their lewd lives, or by reason of scruples that have been injected into their minds, even in their dying hours, by some indiscreet men, die almost in despair.

CHRYSOGLOTTUS: It is no wonder to find them die so, who have spent their lives in philosophising all their lives about ceremonies.

NEPHEW: What do you mean by ceremonies?

CHRYSOGLOTTUS: I will tell you, but with protestation beforehand, over and over, that I do not find fault with the rites and sacraments of the Church, but rather highly approve of them; but I blame a wicked and superstitious sort of people who teach people to put their confidence in these things, omitting those things that make them truly Christians. If you look into Christians in common, do they not live as if the whole sum of religion consisted in ceremonies? With how much pomp are the ancient rites of the Church set forth in baptism? The infant waits without the church door, the exorcism is performed, the catechism is performed, vows are made, Satan is abjured with all his pomps and pleasures; then the child is anointed, signed, seasoned with salt, dipped, a charge given to its sureties to see it well brought up; and the oblation money being paid, they are discharged, and by this time the child passes for a Christian, and in some sense is so. A little time after it is anointed again, and in time learns to confess, receive the sacrament, is accustomed to rest on holy days, to hear divine service, to fast sometimes, to abstain from flesh; and if he observes all these he passes for an absolute Christian. He marries a wife, and then comes on another sacrament; he enters into holy orders, is anointed again and consecrated, his habit is changed, and then to prayers.

Now, I approve of the doing of all this well enough, but the doing of them more out of custom than conscience I do not approve. But to think that nothing else is requisite for the making of a Christian I absolutely disapprove. For the greater part of the men in the world trust to these things, and think they have nothing else to do but get wealth by right or wrong, to gratify their passions of lust, rage, malice, ambition. And this they do till they come on their death-bed. And then follow more ceremonies--confession upon confession more unction still, the eucharists are administered; tapers, the cross, the holy water are brought in; indulgences are procured, if they are to be had for love or money; and orders are given for a magnificent funeral. Now, although these things may be well enough, as they are done in conformity to ecclesiastical customs, yet there are some more internal impressions which have an efficacy to fortify us against the assaults of death by filling our hearts with joy, and helping us to go out of the world with a Christian assurance.

EUSEBIUS: When I was in England I saw St. Thomas' tomb all over bedecked with a vast number of jewels of an immense price, besides other rich furniture, even to admiration. I had rather that these superfluities should be applied to charitable uses than to be reserved for princes that shall one time or other make a booty of them. The holy man, I am confident, would have been better pleased to have had his tomb adorned with leaves and flowers.... Rich men, nowadays, will have their monuments in churches, whereas in time past they could hardly get room for their saints there. If I were a priest or a bishop, I would put it into the head of these thick-skulled courtiers or merchants that if they would atone for their sins to Almighty God they should privately bestow their liberality on the relief of the poor.

* * * * *

A wonderful plea for peace, in shape of an exquisite satire, is the "Colloquy" entitled "Charon." It is a dialogue between Charon, the ghostly boatman on the River Styx, and Genius Alastor. Its style may be gathered from the following excerpt.

CHARON: Whither are you going so brisk, and in such haste, Alastor?

ALASTOR: O Charon, you come in the nick of time; I was coming to you.

CHARON: Well, what news do you bring?

ALASTOR: I bring a message to you and Prosperine that you will be glad to hear. All the Furies have been no less diligent than they have been successful in gaining their point. There is not one foot of ground upon earth that they have not infected with their hellish calamities, seditions, wars, robberies, and plagues. Do you get your boat and your oars ready; you will have such a vast multitude of ghosts come to you anon that I am afraid you will not be able to carry them all over yourself.

CHARON: I could have told you that.

ALASTOR: How came you to know it?

CHARON: Ossa brought me that news about two days ago!

ALASTOR: Nothing is more swift than that goddess. But what makes you loitering here, having left your boat?

CHARON: My business brought me hither. I came hither to provide myself with a good strong three-oared boat, for my boat is so rotten and leaky with age that it will not carry such a burden, if Ossa told me true.

ALASTOR: What was it that Ossa told you?

CHARON: That the three monarchs of the world were bent upon each other's destruction with a mortal hatred, and that no part of Christendom was free from the rage of war; for these three have drawn in all the rest to be engaged in the war with them. They are all so haughty that not one of them will in the least submit to the other. Nor are the Danes, the Poles, the Scots, nor the Turks at quiet, but are preparing to make dreadful havoc. The plague rages everywhere: in Spain, Britain, Italy, France; and, more than all, there is a new fire sprung out of the variety of opinions, which has so corrupted the minds of all men that there is no such thing as sincere friendship anywhere; but brother is at enmity with brother, and husband and wife cannot agree. And it is to be hoped that this distraction will be a glorious destruction of mankind, if these controversies, that are now managed by the tongue and pen, come once to be decided by arms.

ALASTOR: All that fame has told you is true; for I myself, having been a constant companion of the Furies, have with these eyes seen more than all this, and that they never at any time have approved themselves more worthy of their name than now.

CHARON: But there is danger lest some good spirit should start up and of a sudden exhort them to peace. And men's minds are variable, for I have heard that among the living there is one Polygraphus who is continually, by his writing, inveighing against wars, and exhorting to peace.

ALASTOR: Ay, ay, but he has a long time been talking to the deaf. He once wrote a sort of hue and cry after peace, that was banished or driven away; after that an epitaph upon peace defunct. But then, on the other hand, there are others that advance our cause no less than do the Furies themselves. They are a sort of animals in black and white vestments, ash-coloured coats, and various other dresses, that are always hovering about the courts of the princes, and are continually instilling into their ears the love of war, and exhorting the nobility and common people to it, haranguing them in their sermons that it is a just, holy, and religious war. And that which would make you stand in admiration at the confidence of these men is the cry of both parties. In France they preach it up that God is on the French side, and that they can never be overcome that has God for their protector. In England and Spain the cry is, "The war is not the king's, but God's"; therefore, if they do but fight like men, they depend on getting the victory, and if anyone should chance to fall in the battle, he will not die, but fly directly up into heaven, arms and all.

In Praise of Folly

"The Praise of Folly" was written in Latin, and the title,
"Encomium Moriæ," is a pun on the name of his friend, the Greek
word _moria_ (folly) curiously corresponding with his host's
family name. The purpose of this inimitable satire is to cover
every species of foolish men and women with ridicule. Yet through
all the biting sarcasm runs an unbroken vein of religious
seriousness, the contrast greatly enhancing the impression
produced by this masterpiece.

_I.--Stultitia's Declamation_

In whatever manner I, the Goddess of Folly, may be generally spoken of by mortals, yet I assert it emphatically that it is from me, Stultitia, and from my influence only, that gods and men derive all mirth and cheerfulness. You laugh, I see. Well, even that is a telling argument in my favour. Actually now, in this most numerous assembly, as soon as ever I have opened my mouth, the countenances of all have instantly brightened up with fresh and unwonted hilarity, whereas but a few moments ago you were all looking demure and woebegone.

On my very brow my name is written. No one would take me, Stultitia, for Minerva. No one would contend that I am the Goddess of Wisdom. The mere expression of my countenance tells its own tale. Not only am I incapable of deceit, but even those who are under my sway are incapable of deceit likewise. From my illustrious sire, Plutus [Wealth], I glory to be sprung, for he, and no other, was the great progenitor of gods and men, and I care not what Hesiod, or Homer, or even Jupiter himself may maintain to the contrary. Everything, I affirm, is subjected to the control of Plutus. War, peace, empires, designs, judicial decisions, weddings, treaties, alliances, laws, arts, things ludicrous and things serious, are all administered in obedience to his sovereign will.

Now notice the admirable foresight which nature exercises, in order to ensure that men shall never be destitute of folly as the principal ingredient in their constitution. Wisdom, as your divines and moralists put it, consists in men being guided by their reason; and folly, in their being actuated by their passions. See then here what Jupiter has done. In order to prevent the life of man from being utterly intolerable, he has endowed him with reason in singularly small proportion to his passions--only, so to speak, as a half-ounce is to a pound. And whereas he has dispersed his passions over every portion of his body, he has confined his reason to a narrow little crevice in his skull.

And yet, of these silly human beings, the male sex is born under the necessity of transacting the business of the world. When Jupiter was taking counsel with me I advised him to add a woman to the man--a creature foolish and frivolous, but full of laughter and sweetness, who would season and sweeten by her folly the sadness of his manly intelligence.

When Plato doubted whether or not he should place women in the class of rational animals, he really only wished to indicate the remarkable silliness of that sex. Yet women will not be so absolutely senseless as to be offended if I, a woman myself, the goddess Stultitia, tell them thus plainly that they are fools. They will, if they look at the matter aright, be flattered by it. For they are by many degrees more favoured creatures than men. They have beauty--and oh, what a gift is that! By its power they rule the rulers of the world.

The supreme wish of women is to win the admiration of men, and they have no more effectual means to this end than folly. Men, no doubt, will contend that it is the pleasure they have in women's society, and not their folly, that attracts them. I answer that their pleasure is folly, and nothing but folly, in which they delight. You see, then, from what fountain is derived the highest and most exquisite enjoyment that falls to man's lot in life. But there are some men (waning old crones, most of them) who love their glasses better than the lasses, and place their chief delight in tippling. Others love to make fools of themselves to raise a laugh at a feast, and I beg to say that of laughter, fun, and pleasantry, I--Folly--am the sole purveyor.

_II.--The Mockery of Wisdom_

So much for the notion that wisdom is of any use in the pleasures of life. Well, the next thing that our gods of wisdom will assert is that wisdom is necessary for affairs of state. Says Plato, "Those states will prosper whose rulers are guided by the spirit of philosophy." With this opinion I totally disagree. Consult history, and it will tell you that the two Catos, Brutus, Cassius, the Gracchi, Cicero, and Marcus Antoninus all disturbed the tranquillity of the state and brought down on them by their philosophy the disgust and disfavour of the citizens. And who are the men who are most prone, from weariness of life, to seek to put an end to it? Why, men of reputed wisdom. Not to mention Diogenes, the Catos, the Cassii, and the Bruti, there is the remarkable case of Chiron, who, though he actually had immortality conferred on him, voluntarily preferred death.

You see, then, that if men were universally wise, the world would be depopulated, and there would be need of a new creation. But, since the world generally is under the influence of folly and not of wisdom, the case is, happily, different. I, Folly, by inspiring men with hopes of good things they will never get, so charm away their woes that they are far from wishing to die. Nay, the less cause there is for them to desire to live, the more, nevertheless, do they love life. It is of my bounty that you see everywhere men of Nestorean longevity, mumbling, without brains, without teeth, whose hair is white, whose heads are bald, so enamoured of life, so eager to look youthful, that they use dyes, wigs, and other disguises, and take to wife some frisky heifer of a creature; while aged and cadaverous-looking women are seen caterwauling, and, as the Greeks express it, behaving goatishly, in order to induce some beauteous Phaon to pay court to them.

As to the wisdom of the learned professions, the more empty-headed and the more reckless any member of any one of them is, the more he will be thought of. The physician is always in request, and yet medicine, as it is now frequently practised, is nothing but a system of pure humbug. Next in repute to the physicians stand the pettifogging lawyers, who are, according to the philosophers, a set of asses. And asses, I grant you that, they are. Nevertheless, it is by the will and pleasure of these asses that the business of the world is transacted, and they make fortunes while the poor theologians starve.

By the immortal gods, I solemnly swear to you that the happiest men are those whom the world calls fools, simpletons, and blockheads. For they are entirely devoid of the fear of death. They have no accusing consciences to make them fear it. They are, happily, without the experience of the thousands of cares that lacerate the minds of other men. They feel no shame, no solicitude, no ambition, no envy, no love. And, according to the theologians, they are free from any imputation of the guilt of sin! Ah, ye besotted men of wisdom, you need no further evidence than the ills you have gone through to convince you from what a mass of calamities I have delivered my idiotic favourites.

To be deceived, people say, is wretched. But I hold that what is most wretched is not to be deceived. They are in great error who imagine that a man's happiness consists in things as they are. No; it consists entirely in his opinion of what they are. Man is so constituted that falsehood is far more agreeable to him than truth.

Does anyone need proof of this? Let him visit the churches, and assuredly he will find it. If solemn truth is dwelt on, the listeners at once become weary, yawn, and sleep; but if the orator begins some silly tale, they are all attention. And the saints they prefer to appeal to are those whose histories are most made up of fable and romance. Though to be deceived adds much more to your happiness than not to be deceived, it yet costs you much less trouble.

And now to pass to another argument in my favour. Among all the praises of Bacchus this is the chief, that he drives away care; but he does it only for a short time, and then all your care comes again. How much more complete are the benefits mankind derive from me! I also afford them intoxication, but an intoxication whose influence is perennial, and all, too, without cost to them. And my favours I deny to nobody. Mars, Apollo, Saturn, Phœbus, and Neptune are more chary of their bounties and dole them out to their favourites only but I confine my favours to none.

_III.--Classification of Fools_

Of all the men whose doings I have witnessed, the most sordid are men of trade, and appropriately so, for they handle money, a very sordid thing indeed. Yet, though they lie, pilfer, cheat, and impose on everybody, as soon as they grow rich they are looked up to as princes. But as I look round among the various classes of men, I specially note those who are esteemed to possess more than ordinary sagacity. Among these a foremost place is occupied by the schoolmasters. How miserable would these be were it not that I, Folly, of my benevolence, ameliorate their wretchedness and render them insanely happy in the midst of their drudgery! Their lot is one of semi-starvation and of debasing slavery. In the schools, those bridewells of uproar and confusion, they grow prematurely old and broken down, Yet, thanks to my good services, they know not their own misery. For in their own estimation they are mighty fine fellows, strutting about and striking terror into the hearts of trembling urchins, half scarifying the little wretches with straps, canes, and birches. They are, apparently, quite unconscious of the dust and dirt with which their schoolrooms are polluted. In fact, their own most wretched servitude is to them a kingdom of felicity.

The poets owe less to me. Yet they, too, are enthusiastic devotees of mine, for their entire business consists in tickling the ears of fools with silly ditties and ridiculously romantic tales. Of the services of my attendants, Philautia [Self-approbation] and Kolakia [Flattery], they never fail to avail themselves, and really I do not know that there is any other class of men in the world amongst whom I should find more devoted and constant followers.

Moreover, there are the rhetoricians. Quintilian, the prince of them all, has written an immense chapter on no more serious subject than how to excite a laugh. Those, again, who hunt after immortal fame in the domain of literature unquestionably belong to my fraternity. Poor fellows! They pass a wretched existence poring over their manuscripts, and for what reward? For the praise of the very, very limited few who are capable of appreciating their erudition.

Very naturally, the barristers merit our attention next. Talk of female garrulity! Why, I would back any one of them to win a prize for chattering against any twenty of the most talkative women that you could pick out. And well indeed would it be if they had no worse fault than that. I am bound to say that they are not only loquacious, but pugnacious. Their quarrelsomeness is astounding.

After these come the bearded and gowned philosophers. Their insane self-deception as to their sagacity and learning is very delightful. They beguile their time with computing the magnitude of the sun, moon, and stars, and they assign causes for all the phenomena of the universe, as if nature had initiated them into all her secrets. In reality they know nothing, but profess to know everything.

_IV.--On Princes and Pontiffs_

It is high time that I should say a few words to you about kings and the royal princes belonging to their courts. Very different are they from those whom I have just been describing, who pretend to be wise when they are the reverse, for these high personages frankly and openly live a life of folly, and it is just that I should give them their due, and frankly and openly tell them so. They seem to regard it to be the duty of a king to addict himself to the chase; to keep up a grand stud of horses; to extract as much money as possible from the people; to caress by every means in his power the vulgar populace, in order to win their good graces, and so make them the subservient tools of his tyrannical behests.

As for the grandees of the court, a more servile, insipid, empty-headed set than the generality of them you will fail to find anywhere. Yet they wish to be regarded as the greatest personalities on earth. Not a very modest wish, and yet, in one respect, they are modest enough. For instance, they wish to be bedecked with gold and gems and purple, and other external symbols of worth and wisdom, but nothing further do they require.

These courtiers, however, are superlatively happy in the belief that they are perfectly virtuous. They lie in bed till noon. Then they summon their chaplain to their bedside to offer up the sacrifice of the mass, and as the hireling priest goes through his solemn farce with perfunctory rapidity, they, meanwhile, have all but dropped off again into a comfortable condition of slumber. After this they betake themselves to breakfast; and that is scarcely over when dinner supervenes. And then come their pastimes--their dice, their cards, and their gambling--their merriment with jesters and buffoons, and their gallantries with court favourites.

Next let us turn our attention to popes, cardinals, and bishops, who have long rivalled, if they do not surpass, the state and magnificence of princes. If bishops did but bear in mind that a pastoral staff is an emblem of pastoral duties, and that the cross solemnly carried before them is a reminder of the earnestness with which they should strive to crucify the flesh, their lot would be one replete with sadness and solicitude. As things are, a right bonny time do they spend, providing abundant pasturage for themselves, and leaving their flocks to the negligent charge of so-called friars and vicars.

Fortune favours the fool. We colloquially speak of him and such as him as "lucky birds," while, when we speak of a wise man, we proverbially describe him as one who has been "born under an evil star," and as one whose "horse will never carry him to the front." If you wish to get a wife, mind, above all things, that you beware of wisdom; for the girls, without exception, are heart and soul so devoted to fools, that you may rely on it a man who has any wisdom in him they will shun as they would a vampire.

And now, to sum up much in a few words, go among what classes of men you will, go among popes, princes, cardinals, judges, magistrates, friends, foes, great men, little men, and you will not fail to find that a man with plenty of money at his command has it in his power to obtain everything that he sets his heart upon. A wise man, however, despises money. And what is the consequence? Everyone despises him!

GESTA ROMANORUM

A Story-Book of the Middle Ages

The "Gesta Romanorum," or "Deeds of the Romans," a quaint
collection of moral tales compiled by the monks, was used in
the Middle Ages for pulpit instruction. Hence the curious
"Applications" to the stories, two of which are here given as
examples. Wynkyn de Worde was the first to print the "Gesta" in
English, about 1510. His version is based on Latin manuscripts
of English origin, and differs from the first edition, and from
the Latin text printed abroad about 1473. The stories have
little to do with authentic Roman history, and abound in amusing
confusions, contradictions, and anachronisms. But their interest
is undeniable, and they form the source of many famous pieces of
English literature. In the English "Gesta" occur the originals of
the bond and casket incidents in "The Merchant of Venice."

_I.--Of Love_

Pompey was a wise and powerful king. He had one well-beloved daughter, who was very beautiful. Her he committed to the care of five soldiers, who were to guard her night and day. Before the door of the princess's chamber they hung a burning lamp, and, moreover, they kept a loud-barking dog to rouse them from sleep. But the lady panted for the pleasures of the world, and one day, looking abroad, she was espied by a certain amorous duke, who made her many fair promises.

Hoping much from these, the princess slew the dog, put out the light, and fled by night with the duke. Now, there was in the palace a certain doughty champion, who pursued the fugitives and beheaded the duke. He brought the lady home again; but her father would not see her, and thenceforward she passed her time bewailing her misdeeds.