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And then when they run over their offices, which they carry about them, rather by tale than
understanding, they believe the gods more than ordinarily pleased with their braying. And
some there are among them that put off their trumperies at vast rates, yet rove up and down
for the bread they eat; nay, there is scarce an inn, wagon, or ship into which they intrude not,
to the no small damage of the commonwealth of beggars. And yet, like pleasant fellows, with
all this vileness, ignorance, rudeness, and impudence, they represent to us, for so they call it,
the lives of the apostles. Yet what is more pleasant than that they do all things by rule and, as
it were, a kind of mathematics, the least swerving from which were a crime beyond
forgiveness--as how many knots their shoes must be tied with, of what color everything is,
what distinction of habits, of what stuff made, how many straws broad their girdles and of
what fashion, how many bushels wide their cowl, how many fingers long their hair, and how
many hours sleep; which exact equality, how disproportionate it is, among such variety of
bodies and tempers, who is there that does not perceive it? And yet by reason of these
fooleries they not only set slight by others, but each different order, men otherwise professing
apostolical charity, despise one another, and for the different wearing of a habit, or that 'tis of
darker color, they put all things in combustion.
