of alchemists, the philosopher's stone,
new projectors, &c., and all those works of darkness, foolish vows, hopes,
fears and wishes, what a deal of laughter would it have afforded? He should
have seen windmills in one man's head, an hornet's nest in another. Or had
he been present with Icaromenippus in Lucian at Jupiter's whispering place,
[390]and heard one pray for rain, another for fair weather; one for his
wife's, another for his father's death, &c.; "to ask that at God's hand
which they are abashed any man should hear:" How would he have been
confounded? Would he, think you, or any man else, say that these men were
well in their wits? _Haec sani esse hominis quis sanus juret Orestes_? Can
all the hellebore in the Anticyrae cure these men? No, sure, [391]"an acre
of hellebore will not do it."

That which is more to be lamented, they are mad like Seneca's blind woman,
and will not acknowledge, or [392]seek for any cure of it, for _pauci
vident morbum suum, omnes amant_. If our leg or arm offend us, we covet by
all means possible to redress it; [393]and if we labour of a bodily
disease, we send for a physician; but for the diseases of the mind we take
no notice of them: [394]Lust harrows us on the one side; envy, anger,
ambition on the other. We are torn in pieces by our passions, as so many
wild horses, one in disposition, another in habit; one is melancholy,
another mad; [395]and which of us all seeks for help, doth acknowledge his
error, or knows he is sick? As that stupid fellow put out the candle
because the biting fleas should not find him; he shrouds himself in an
unknown habit, borrowed titles, because nobody should discern him. Every
man thinks with himself, _Egomet videor mihi sanus_, I am well, I am wise,
and laughs at others. And 'tis a general fault amongst them all, that [396]
which our forefathers have approved, diet, apparel, opinions, humours,
customs, manners, we deride and reject in our time as absurd. Old men
account juniors all fools, when they are mere dizzards; and as to sailors,
------_terraeque urbesque recedunt_------ they move, the land stands still,
the world hath much more wit, they dote themselves. Turks deride us, we
them; Italians Frenchmen, accounting them light headed fellows, the French
scoff again at Italians, and at their several customs; Greeks have
condemned all the world but themselves of barbarism, the world as much
vilifies them now; we account Germans heavy, dull fellows, explo