away himself; A worldling tremble at an executor, and yet not fear
hell-fire; To wish and hope for immortality, desire to be happy, and yet by
all means avoid death, a necessary passage to bring him to it.

To see a foolhardy fellow like those old Danes, _qui decollari malunt quam
verberari_, die rather than be punished, in a sottish humour embrace death
with alacrity, yet [382]scorn to lament his own sins and miseries, or his
clearest friends' departures.

To see wise men degraded, fools preferred, one govern towns and cities, and
yet a silly woman overrules him at home; [383]Command a province, and yet
his own servants or children prescribe laws to him, as Themistocles' son
did in Greece; [384]"What I will" (said he) "my mother will, and what my
mother will, my father doth." To see horses ride in a coach, men draw it;
dogs devour their masters; towers build masons; children rule; old men go
to school; women wear the breeches; [385]sheep demolish towns, devour men,
&c. And in a word, the world turned upside downward. _O viveret
Democritus_.

[386]To insist in every particular were one of Hercules' labours, there's
so many ridiculous instances, as motes in the sun. _Quantum est in rebus
inane_? (How much vanity there is in things!) And who can speak of all?
_Crimine ab uno disce omnes_, take this for a taste.

But these are obvious to sense, trivial and well known, easy to be
discerned. How would Democritus have been moved, had he seen [387]the
secrets of their hearts? If every man had a window in his breast, which
Momus would have had in Vulcan's man, or that which Tully so much wished it
were written in every man's forehead, _Quid quisque de republica sentiret_,
what he thought; or that it could be effected in an instant, which Mercury