now of it, yet for a bribe they wink
at it, and suffer false contracts to prevail against equity. Women are all
day a dressing, to pleasure other men abroad, and go like sluts at home,
not caring to please their own husbands whom they should. Seeing men are so
fickle, so sottish, so intemperate, why should not I laugh at those to whom
[254]folly seems wisdom, will not be cured, and perceive it not?

It grew late: Hippocrates left him; and no sooner was he come away, but all
the citizens came about flocking, to know how he liked him. He told them in
brief, that notwithstanding those small neglects of his attire, body, diet,
[255]the world had not a wiser, a more learned, a more honest man, and they
were much deceived to say that he was mad.

Thus Democritus esteemed of the world in his time, and this was the cause
of his laughter: and good cause he had.

[256] "Olim jure quidem, nunc plus Democrite ride;
Quin rides? vita haec nunc mage ridicula est."

"Democritus did well to laugh of old,
Good cause he had, but now much more;
This life of ours is more ridiculous
Than that of his, or long before."

Never so much cause of laughter as now, never so many fools and madmen.
'Tis not one [257]Democritus will serve turn to laugh in these days; we
have now need of a "Democritus to laugh at Democritus;" one jester to flout
at another, one fool to fleer at another: a great stentorian Democritus, as
big as that Rhodian Colossus, For now, as [258]Salisburiensis said in his
time, _totus mundus histrionem agit_, the whole world plays the fool; we
have a new theatre, a new scene, a new comedy of errors, a new company of
personate actors, _volupiae sacra_ (as Calcagninus willingly feigns in his
Apologues) are celebrated all the world over, [259]where all the actors
were madmen and fools, and every hour changed habits, or took that which
came next. He that was a mariner today, is an apothecary tomorrow; a smith
one while, a philosopher another, _in his volupiae ludis_; a king now with
his crown, robes, sceptre, attendants, by and by drove a loaded ass before
him like a carter, &c. If Democritus were alive now, he should see strange
alterations, a new company of counterfeit vizards, whifflers, Cumane asses,
maskers, mummers, painted puppets, outsides, fantastic shadows, gulls,
monsters, giddy-heads, butterflies. And so many of them are indeed ([260]if
all be true that I have read). For when