of them, neither is it fit; _per me sint omnia protinus alba_, I will not
think amiss of them. Whom next? Stoics? _Sapiens Stoicus_, and he alone is
subject to no perturbations, as [775]Plutarch scoffs at him, "he is not
vexed with torments, or burnt with fire, foiled by his adversary, sold of
his enemy: though he be wrinkled, sand-blind, toothless, and deformed; yet
he is most beautiful, and like a god, a king in conceit, though not worth a
groat. He never dotes, never mad, never sad, drunk, because virtue cannot
be taken away," as [776]Zeno holds, "by reason of strong apprehension," but
he was mad to say so. [777]_Anticyrae caelo huic est opus aut dolabra_, he
had need to be bored, and so had all his fellows, as wise as they would
seem to be. Chrysippus himself liberally grants them to be fools as well as
others, at certain times, upon some occasions, _amitti virtutem ait per
ebrietatem, aut atribilarium morbum_, it may be lost by drunkenness or
melancholy, he may be sometimes crazed as well as the rest: [778]_ad summum
sapiens nisi quum pituita molesta_. I should here except some Cynics,
Menippus, Diogenes, that Theban Crates; or to descend to these times, that
omniscious, only wise fraternity [779]of the Rosicrucians, those great
theologues, politicians, philosophers, physicians, philologers, artists,
&c. of whom S. Bridget, Albas Joacchimus, Leicenbergius, and such divine
spirits have prophesied, and made promise to the world, if at least there
be any such (Hen. [780]Neuhusius makes a doubt of it, [781] Valentinus
Andreas and others) or an Elias artifex their Theophrastian master; whom
though Libavius and many deride and carp at, yet some will have to be "the
[782]renewer of all arts and sciences," reformer of the world, and now
living, for so Johannes Montanus Strigoniensis, that great patron of
Paracelsus, contends, and certainly avers [783]"a most divine man," and the
quintessence of wisdom wheresoever he is; for he, his fraternity, friends,
&c. are all [784]"betrothed to wisdom," if we may believe their disciples
and followers. I must needs except Lipsius and the Pope, and expunge their
name out of the catalogue of fools. For besides that parasitical testimony