_. And in Ecclesiasticus likewise (whoever was author of
the holy book which bears that name) in the forty-fourth chapter, the
excellency of folly above wisdom is positively acknowledged; the very
words I shall not cite, till I have the advantage of an answer to a
question I am proposing, this way of interrogating being frequently made
use of by Plato in his dialogues between Socrates, and other disputants:
I ask you then, what is it we usually hoard and lock up, things of
greater esteem and value, or those which are more common, trite, and
despicable? Why are you so backward in making an answer? Since you are
so shy and reserved, I'll take the Greek proverb for a satisfactory
reply; namely, _Foul water is thrown down the sink_; which saying, that
no person may slight it, may be convenient to advertise that it comes
from no meaner an author than that oracle of truth, Aristotle himself.
And indeed there is no one on this side Bedlam so mad as to throw out
upon the dunghill his gold and jewels, but rather all persons have a
close repository to preserve them in, and secure them under all the
locks, bolts, and bars, that either art can contrive, or fears suggest:
whereas the dirt, pebbles, and oyster-shells, that lie scattered in the
streets, ye trample upon, pass by, and take no notice of.

[Illustration: 348]

If then what is more valuable be coffered up, and what less so lies
unregarded, it follows, that accordingly Folly should meet with a
greater esteem than wisdom, because that wise author advises us to the
keeping close and concealing the first, and exposing or laying open the
other: as take him now in his own words, _Better is he that hideth his
folly than him that hideth his wisdom_. Beside, the sacred text does oft
ascribe innocence and sincerity to fools, while the wise man is apt to
be a haughty scorner of all such as he thinks or censures to have less
wit than himself: for so I understand that passage in the tenth chapter
of Ecclesiastes, _When he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom
faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool._ Now what
greater argument of candour or ingenuity can there be, than to demean
himself equal with all others, and not think their deserts any way
inferior to his own. Folly is no such scandalous attribute, but that
the wise Agur was not ashamed to confess it, in the thirtieth chapter
of Proverbs: _Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the
understandi