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And first, every man allows this proverb, "That where a man wants matter, he may best
frame some." And to this purpose is that verse which we teach children, "'Tis the greatest
wisdom to know when and where to counterfeit the fool." And now judge yourselves what
an excellent thing this folly is, whose very counterfeit and semblance only has got such praise
from the learned. But more candidly does that fat plump "Epicurean bacon-hog," Horace,
for so he calls himself, bid us "mingle our purposes with folly;" and whereas he adds the
word bravem, short, perhaps to help out the verse, he might as well have let it alone; and
again, "'Tis a pleasant thing to play the fool in the right season;" and in another place, he
had rather "be accounted a dotterel and sot than to be wise and made mouths at." And
Telemachus in Homer, whom the poet praises so much, is now and then called nepios, fool:
and by the same name, as if there were some good fortune in it, are the tragedians wont to
call boys and striplings. And what does that sacred book of Iliads contain but a kind of
counter-scuffle between foolish kings and foolish people? Besides, how absolute is that praise
that Cicero gives of it! "All things are full of fools." For who does not know that every good,
the more diffusive it is, by so much the better it is?
