those who are offended at the
lightness and pedantry of this subject, I would have them consider that
I do not set myself for the first example of this kind, but that the
same has been oft done by many considerable authors. For thus several
ages since, Homer wrote of no more weighty a subject than of a war
between the frogs and mice, Virgil of a gnat and a pudding-cake,
and Ovid of a nut Poly-crates commended the cruelty of Busiris; and
Isocrates, that corrects him for this, did as much for the injustice of
Glaucus. Favorinus extolled Thersites, and wrote in praise of a quartan
ague. Synesius pleaded in behalf of baldness; and Lucian defended
a sipping fly. Seneca drollingly related the deifying of Claudius;
Plutarch the dialogue betwixt Gryllus and Ulysses; Lucian and Apuleius
the story of an ass; and somebody else records the last will of a
hog, of which St. Hierom makes mention. So that if they please, let
themselves think the worst of me, and fancy to themselves that I was all
this while a playing at push-pin, or riding astride on a hobby-horse.
For how unjust is it, if when we allow different recreations to each
particular course of life, we afford no diversion to studies; especially
when trifles may be a whet to more serious thoughts, and comical matters
may be so treated of, as that a reader of ordinary sense may possibly
thence reap more advantage than from some more big and stately argument:
as while one in a long-winded oration descants in commendation of
rhetoric or philosophy, another in a fulsome harangue sets forth the
praise of his nation, a third makes a zealous invitation to a holy war
with the Turks, another confidently sets up for a fortune-teller, and a
fifth states questions upon mere impertinences. But as nothing is more
childish than to handle a serious subject in a loose, wanton style, so
is there nothing more pleasant than so to treat of trifles, as to make
them seem nothing less than what their name imports. As to what relates
to myself, I must be forced to submit to the judgment of others; yet,
except I am too partial to be judge in my own case, I am apt to believe
I have praised Folly in such a manner as not to have deserved the name
of fool for my pains. To reply now to the objection of satyricalness,
wits have been always allowed this privilege, that they might be smart
upon any transactions of life, if so be their liberty did not extend to
railing; which makes me wonder at the tender-eared h