lightest reasons that may be, will seem to weigh greatly, if nothing
be put in the counterbalance, let us hear, and, as well as we can,
ponder what objections be made against this art, which may be worthy
either of yielding or answering.

First, truly, I note, not only in these [Greek text], poet-haters,
but in all that kind of people who seek a praise by dispraising
others, that they do prodigally spend a great many wandering words
in quips and scoffs, carping and taunting at each thing, which, by
stirring the spleen, may stay the brain from a thorough beholding,
the worthiness of the subject. Those kind of objections, as they
are full of a very idle uneasiness (since there is nothing of so
sacred a majesty, but that an itching tongue may rub itself upon
it), so deserve they no other answer, but, instead of laughing at
the jest, to laugh at the jester. We know a playing wit can praise
the discretion of an ass, the comfortableness of being in debt, and
the jolly commodities of being sick of the plague; so, of the
contrary side, if we will turn Ovid's verse,


"Ut lateat virtus proximitate mali."


"That good lies hid in nearness of the evil," Agrippa will be as
merry in the showing the Vanity of Science, as Erasmus was in the
commending of Folly; {60} neither shall any man or matter escape
some touch of these smiling railers. But for Erasmus and Agrippa,
they had another foundation than the superficial part would promise.
Marry, these other pleasant fault-finders, who will correct the verb
before they understand the noun, and confute others' knowledge