nations unitedly concur. Beside, to what purpose
is it to lay down a definition for a faint resemblance, and mere shadow
of me, while appearing here personally, you may view me at a more
certain light? And if your eye-sight fail not, you may at first
blush discern me to be her whom the Greeks term _Mwpia_, the Latins
_stultitia_.

[Illustration: Folly 044]

But why need I have been so impertinent as to have told you this, as if
my very looks did not sufficiently betray what I am; or supposing any be
so credulous as to take me for some sage matron or goddess of wisdom, as
if a single glance from me would not immediately correct their mistake,
while my visage, the exact reflex of my soul, would supply and supersede
the trouble of any other confessions: for I appear always in my natural
colours, and an unartificial dress, and never let my face pretend one
thing, and my heart conceal another; nay, and in all things I am so true
to my principles, that I cannot be so much as counterfeited, even by
those who challenge the name of wits, yet indeed are no better than
jackanapes tricked up in gawdy clothes, and asses strutting in lions'
skins; and how cunningly soever they carry it, their long ears appear,
and betray what they are. These in troth are very rude and disingenuous,
for while they apparently belong to my party, yet among the vulgar they
are so ashamed of my relation, as to cast it in others' dish for a shame
and reproach: wherefore since they are so eager to be accounted wise,
when in truth they are extremely silly, what, if to give them their due,
I dub them with the title of wise fools: and herein they copy after
the example of some modern orators, who swell to that proportion of
conceitedness, as to vaunt themselves for so many giants of eloquence,
if with a double-tongued fluency they can plead indifferently for either
side, and deem it a very doughty exploit if they can but interlard a
Latin sentence with some Greek word, which for seeming garnish they
crowd in at a venture; and rather than be at a stand for some cramp
words, they will furnish up a long scroll of old obsolete terms out of
some musty author, and foist them in, to amuse the reader with, that
those who understand them may be tickled with the happiness of being
acquainted with them: and those who understand them not, the less they
know the more they may admire; whereas it has been always a custom to
those of our side to contemn and undervalue whatev