h a habit of fool-hardiness introduced, as mightily contributes
to the success of all enterprizes. Farther, if you will have wisdom
taken in the other sense, of being a right judgment of things, you shall
see how short wise men fall of it in this acceptation.

First, then, it is certain that all things, like so many Janus's, carry
a double face, or rather bear a false aspect, most things being really
in themselves far different from what they are in appearance to others:
so as that which at first blush proves alive, is in truth dead; and
that again which appears as dead, at a nearer view proves to be alive:
beautiful seems ugly, wealthy poor, scandalous is thought creditable,
prosperous passes for unlucky, friendly for what is most opposite, and
innocent for what is hurtful and pernicious. In short, if we change the
tables, all things are found placed in a quite different posture from
what just before they appeared to stand in.

If this seem too darkly and unintelligibly expressed, I will explain it
by the familiar instance of some great king or prince, whom every one
shall suppose to swim in a luxury of wealth, and to be a powerful lord
and master; when, alas, on the one hand he has poverty of spirit enough
to make him a mere beggar, and on the other side he is worse than a
galley-slave to his own lusts and passions.

If I had a mind farther to expatiate, I could enlarge upon several
instances of like nature, but this one may at present suffice.

Well, but what is the meaning (will some say) of all this? Why, observe
the application. If any one in a play-house be so impertinent and rude
as to rifle the actors of their borrowed clothes, make them lay down the
character assumed, and force them to return to their naked selves, would
not such a one wholly discompose and spoil the entertainment? And would
he not deserve to be hissed and thrown stones at till the pragmatical
fool could learn better manners? For by such a disturbance the whole
scene will be altered: such as acted the men will perhaps appear to be
women: he that was dressed up for a young brisk lover, will be found a
rough old fellow; and he that represented a king, will remain but a mean
ordinary serving-man. The laying things thus open is marring all the
sport, which consists only in counterfeit and disguise. Now the world is
nothing else but such another comedy, where every one in the tire-room
is first habited suitably to the part he is to act; and as it