Minervae_, we and our writings are shallow and imperfect. But I do not so
mean; even in our ordinary dealings we are no better than fools. "All our
actions," as [213]Pliny told Trajan, "upbraid us of folly," our whole
course of life is but matter of laughter: we are not soberly wise; and the
world itself, which ought at least to be wise by reason of his antiquity,
as [214]Hugo de Prato Florido will have it, "_semper stultizat_, is every
day more foolish than other; the more it is whipped, the worse it is, and
as a child will still be crowned with roses and flowers." We are apish in
it, _asini bipedes_, and every place is full _inversorum Apuleiorum_ of
metamorphosed and two-legged asses, _inversorum Silenorum_, childish,
_pueri instar bimuli, tremula patris dormientis in ulna_. Jovianus
Pontanus, Antonio Dial, brings in some laughing at an old man, that by
reason of his age was a little fond, but as he admonisheth there, _Ne
mireris mi hospes de hoc sene_, marvel not at him only, for _tota haec
civitas delirium_, all our town dotes in like sort, [215]we are a company
of fools. Ask not with him in the poet, [216]_Larvae hunc intemperiae
insaniaeque agitant senem_? What madness ghosts this old man, but what
madness ghosts us all? For we are _ad unum omnes_, all mad, _semel
insanivimus omnes_ not once, but alway so, _et semel, et simul, et semper_,
ever and altogether as bad as he; and not _senex bis puer, delira anus_,
but say it of us all, _semper pueri_, young and old, all dote, as
Lactantius proves out of Seneca; and no difference betwixt us and children,
saving that, _majora ludimus, et grandioribus pupis_, they play with babies
of clouts and such toys, we sport with greater baubles. We cannot accuse or
condemn one another, being faulty ourselves, _deliramenta loqueris_, you
talk idly, or as [217]Mitio upbraided Demea, _insanis, auferte_, for we are
as mad our own selves, and it is hard to say which is the worst. Nay, 'tis
universally so, [218]_Vitam regit fortuna, non sapientia_.

When [219]Socrates had taken great pains to find out a wise man, and to