metamorphoses of the gods, of whom I shall not mention what they have
done in their pettish humors but where they have been most favorable:
turning one into a tree, another into a bird, a third into a grasshopper,
serpent, or the like. As if there were any difference between perishing
and being another thing! But I restore the same man to the best and
happiest part of his life. And if men would but refrain from all commerce
with wisdom and give up themselves to be governed by me, they should
never know what it were to be old, but solace themselves with a perpetual
youth. Do but observe our grim philosophers that are perpetually beating
their brains on knotty subjects, and for the most part you'll find them
grown old before they are scarcely young. And whence is it, but that
their continual and restless thoughts insensibly prey upon their spirits
and dry up their radical moisture? Whereas, on the contrary, my fat fools
are as plump and round as a Westphalian hog, and never sensible of old
age, unless perhaps, as sometimes it rarely happens, they come to be
infected with wisdom, so hard a thing it is for a man to be happy in all
things. And to this purpose is that no small testimony of the proverb,
that says, "Folly is the only thing that keeps youth at a stay and old
age afar off;" as it is verified in the Brabanders, of whom there goes
this common saying, "That age, which is wont to render other men wiser,
makes them the greater fools." And yet there is scarce any nation of a
more jocund converse, or that is less sensible of the misery of old age,
than they are. And to these, as in situation, so for manner of living,
come nearest my friends the Hollanders. And why should I not call them
mine, since they are so diligent observers of me that they are commonly
called by my name?--of which they are so far from being ashamed, they
rather pride themselves in it. Let the foolish world then be packing and
seek out Medeas, Circes, Venuses, Auroras, and I know not what other
fountains of restoring youth. I am sure I am the only person that both
can, and have, made it good. 'Tis I alone that have that wonderful juice