not the
smart of it. Of the same mind is Aelian Montaltus, [798]Melancthon, and
others; [799]Julius Caesar Claudinus calls it the "fountain of all other
diseases, and so common in this crazed age of ours, that scarce one of a
thousand is free from it;" and that splenetic hypochondriacal wind
especially, which proceeds from the spleen and short ribs. Being then a
disease so grievous, so common, I know not wherein to do a more general
service, and spend my time better, than to prescribe means how to prevent
and cure so universal a malady, an epidemical disease, that so often, so
much crucifies the body and mind.

If I have overshot myself in this which hath been hitherto said, or that it
is, which I am sure some will object, too fantastical, "too light and
comical for a Divine, too satirical for one of my profession," I will
presume to answer with [800]Erasmus, in like case, 'tis not I, but
Democritus, Democritus _dixit_: you must consider what it is to speak in
one's own or another's person, an assumed habit and name; a difference
betwixt him that affects or acts a prince's, a philosopher's, a
magistrate's, a fool's part, and him that is so indeed; and what liberty
those old satirists have had; it is a cento collected from others; not I,
but they that say it.

[801] "Dixero si quid forte jocosius, hoc mihi juris
Cum venia, dabis"------

"Yet some indulgence I may justly claim,
If too familiar with another's fame."

Take heed you mistake me not. If I do a little forget myself, I hope you
will pardon it. And to say truth, why should any man be offended, or take
exceptions at it?

"Licuit, semperque licebit,
Parcere personis, dicere de vitiis."

"It lawful was of old, and still will be,
To speak of vice, but let the name go free."

I hate their vices, not their persons. If any be displeased, or take aught
unto himself, let him not expostulate or cavil with him that said it (so
did [802]Erasmus excuse himself to Dorpius, _si parva licet componere
magnis_) and so do I; "but let him be angry with himself, that so betrayed
and opened his own faults in applying it to himself:" [803]"if he be guilty
and deserve it, let him amend, whoever he is, and not be angry." "He that
hateth correction is a fool," Prov. xii. 1. If he be not guilty, it
concerns him not; it is not my freeness of speech, but a guilty conscience,
a galled back of his own that makes him wince.