ll
be buried when they die, that they solemnly appoint how many torches,
how many escutcheons, how many gloves to be given, and how many mourners
they will have at their funeral; as if they thought they themselves in
their coffins could be sensible of what respect was paid to their
corpse; or as if they doubted they should rest a whit the less quiet in
the grave if they were with less state and pomp interred.

Now though I am in so great haste, as I would not willingly be stopped
or detained, yet I cannot pass by without bestowing some remarks upon
another sort of fools; who, though their first descent was perhaps no
better than from a tapster or tinker, yet highly value themselves upon
their birth and parentage. One fetches his pedigree from AEneas, another
from Brute, a third from king Arthur: they hang up their ancestors'
worm-eaten pictures as records of antiquity, and keep a long list of
their predecessors, with an account of all their offices and tides,
while they themselves are but transcripts of their forefathers' dumb
statues, and degenerate even into those very beasts which they carry
in their coat of arms as ensigns of their nobility: and yet by a strong
presumption of their birth and quality, they live not only the most
pleasant and unconcerned themselves, but there are not wanting others
too who cry up these brutes almost equal to the gods. But why should I
dwell upon one or two instances of Folly, when there are so many of like
nature. Conceitedness and self-love making many by strength of Fancy
believe themselves happy, when otherwise they are really wretched and
despicable. Thus the most ape-faced, ugliest fellow in the whole town,
shall think himself a mirror of beauty: another shall be so proud of his
parts, that if he can but mark out a triangle with a pair of compasses,
he thinks he has mastered all the difficulties of geometry, and could
outdo Euclid himself. A third shall admire himself for a ravishing
musician, though he have no more skill in the handling of any instrument
than a pig playing on the organs: and another that rattles in the throat
as hoarse as a cock crows, shall be proud of his voice, and think he
sings like a nightingale.

[Illustration: 199]

There is another very pleasant sort of madness, whereby persons assume
to themselves whatever of accomplishment they discern in others. Thus
the happy rich churl in Seneca, who had so short a memory, as he could
not tell the least story wi