stupend structures, as those Ægyptian Pyramids, Labyrinths and Sphinges, which a company of crowned asses, ad ostentationem opum, vainly built, when neither the Architect nor King that made them, or to what use and purpose, are yet known:

To insist in their hypocrisie, inconstancie, blindnesse, rashnesse, dementem temeritatem, fraud, cosenage, malice, anger, impudence, ingratitude, ambition, grosse superstition, tempora infecta & adulatione sordida, as in Tiberius times, such base flattery, stupend, parasitical fawning and colloguing, &c. brawles, conflicts, desires, contentions, it would ask an expert Vesalius to anatomise every member.

Shall I say? Jupiter himself, Apollo, Mars, &c. doted; and monster-conquering Hercules that subdued the world, & helped others, could not relieve himself in this, but mad he was at last. And where shall a man walk, converse with whom, in what Province, City, and not meet whith Signior Deliro, or Hercules Furens, Mænades, and Corybantes?

Their speeches say no lesse. E fungis nati homines, or else they fetched their pedigree from those that were struck by Sampson with the jawbone of an asse. Or from Deucalion and Pyrrha’s stones, for durum genus sumus, marmorei sumus, we are stony hearted, and savour too much of the stock,

as if they had all heard that inchanted horn of Astolpho that English Duke in Ariosto, which never sounded but all his auditors were mad, & for fear ready to make away themselves; or landed in the mad haven in the Euxine sea of Daphnis insana, which had a secret quality to dementate;

they are a company of giddy-heads, afternoon-men, it is Midsomer moon still, and the Dogdaies last all the year long, they are all mad. Whom shall I then except? Vlricus Huttenus nemo, nam, nemo omnibus horis sapit, Nemo nascitur sine vitiis, Crimine Nemo caret, Nemo sorte sua vivit contentus, Nemo in amore sapit, Nemo bonus, Nemo sapiens, Nemo, est ex omni parte beatus, &c.

and therefore Nicholas Nemo, or Monsieur No-body shall go free, Quid veleat nemo, Nemo referre potest? But whom shall I except in the second place? such as are silent, vir sapit qui pauca loquitur; no better way to avoid folly and madnesse, then by taciturnity.

Whom in a third? all Senators, Magistrates: for all fortunate men are wise, and conquerors valiant, and so are all great men, non est bonum ludere cum diis, they are wise by authority, good by their office and place, his licet impune pessimos esse, (some say) we must not speak of them, neither is it fit; per me sint omnia protinus alba, I will not think amisse of them.

Whom next? Stoicks? Sapiens Stoicus, and he alone is subject to no perturbations, as Plutarch scoffs at him, he is not vexed with torments, or burnt with fire, foiled by his adversary, sold of his enemy: though he be wrinckled, sand-blinde, toothlesse and deformed; yet he is most beautifull, and like a god, a king in conceit, though not worth a groat.

He never dotes, never mad, never sad, drunk, because vertue cannot be taken away, as Zeno holds, by reason of strong apprehension, but he was mad to say so. Anticyræ cœlo huic est opus aut dolabrâ, he had need to be bored, and so had all his fellows, as wise as they would seem to be.

Chrysippus himself liberally grants them to be fools as well as others, at certain times, upon some occasions, amitti virtutem ait per ebrietatem, aut atrabilarium morbum, it may be lost by drunkennesse or melancholy, he may be sometimes crased as well as the rest: ad summum sapiens nisi quum pituita molesta.

I should here except some Cynicks, Menippus, Diogenes, that Theban Crates; or to descend to these times, that omniscious, only wise fraternity of the Rosie Crosse, those great Theologues, Politicians, Philosophers, Physitians, Philologers, Artists, &c. of whom S. Bridget, Abbas Joacchimus, Leicenbergius, and such divine spirits have prophesied, & made promise to the world,

if at least there be any such (Hen. Neuhusius makes a doubt of it, Valentinus Andreas and others) or an Elias artifex their Theophrastian master; whom though Libavius & many deride and carp at, yet some will have to be the renewer of all arts & sciences, reformer of the world, & now living,

for so Johannes Montanus Strigoniensis that great Patron of Paracelsus contends, and certainly avers a most divine man, & the quintessence of wisdom wheresoever he is; for he, his fraternity, friends, &c. are all betrothed to wisdom, if we may believe their disciples and followers.

I must needs except Lipsius & the Pope, and expunge their name out of the catalogue of fools. For besides that parasitical testimony of Dousa, A Sole exoriente Mæotidas usque paludes, Nemo est qui justo se æquiparare queat.

Lipsius saith of himself, that he was humani generis quidem pædagogus voce & stylo, a grand Signior, a Master, a Tutor of us all, and for 13 years he brags, how he sowed wisdom in the Low countries, as Ammonius the philosopher sometimes did in Alexandria, cum humanitate literas & sapientiam cum prudentia: antistes sapientiæ, he shall be Sapientum Octavus.